Off to the races.

So, Sidney is mobile.  It started off innocently enough, he went from “getting into the crawl position” to “dragging himself to a new location” (previously discussed) to “oh look, he’s crawling!”.  This was all very exciting, and The Wife and I were beaming with parental pride at our son’s development … then he learned how to teleport.  I know what you’re all thinking, “oh, Ed, you and your colorful hyperbole!”, but there is no other (comedic) way to describe the staggering speed at which Sidney gets from point A to point B when you are not directly watching him.  It’s not unlike observing an Uncertainty Principle experiment on a macro scale: you either know that Sidney is moving, but can’t spot him immediately, or you can pinpoint where he is exactly, but you have no idea how, or more importantly how fast, he got there.  Heisenberg, you had no idea how deep your theory ran. 

Now, Sidney’s adherence to quantum laws creates some additional problems as well.  First, unless you are staring right at him, you have no guaranty he is going to be anywhere near his last spot if you take your gaze away from him to do something else, like, for example, blinking.  He’s playing with a toy near the couch, you blink, he’s now in front of the bedroom door, you sneeze and suddenly he’s at the wine rack pulling at a bottle.  Your eyes were shut for a total combined 6 nano-seconds (might have been longer, and I might have left the room momentarily, but who’s counting) and he’s traversed 15 feet, making 2 stops.  Come to think of it, it’s the Uncertainty Principle wrapped around Schrödinger’s Cat: Sidney either is or is not teleporting to some new spot in the apartment, but you can’t tell until you look up and yell “WHERE DID YOU GO!?”

Second, Sidney can force objects through Einstein-Rosen-esque worm holes and/or extra-dimensional pockets, rendering them, at least temporarily, un-findable.  To illustrate, he has a set of nestling cups that he loves playing with (Nana, Abuela and the Admiral have spent countless hours building towers with them for him that he gleefully knocks down).  Sidney grabs the nestled stack of cups and within seconds half of them are nowhere to be seen.  They have been found whole rooms away from where he was playing with them during the day.  The only possible (not really) explanation is that he is holding onto one just as he teleports (because you blinked) and the thing is dropped off in some Calabi-Yau nook from which it emerges later.  I’m starting to think early quantum physicists were participating in an elaborate “bring your kids to work” program when they made most of their discoveries.

All of this aside, watching a whole new world open up for Sidney is fascinating.  The smile on his face when he races to something he was staring at, or having him crawl from one end of the couch just to snuggle with you, brings a warmth to the heart that words do not adequately convey.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish work on a multi-dimensional tracking device.

Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat ...

It is difficult to describe the joy I feel watching Sidney learn something new, observing him discover his world.  Despite its richness, deep reserve of synonyms and ridiculous ease of metaphor, English may simply not be equipped to accurately convey this euphoric melange of pride, happiness, excitement and amazement.  What it can readily describe, however, are the emotions that follow this medley of merriment, the emotions I feel as I realize exactly what Sidney's particular discovery means for good old Mom and Dad.  Here is but a smattering of my post pride realizations, and what caused them:

1. We've been had!: We recently had a very nice trip to Ocean City, NJ.  The Wife, Sidney and Nana were there for the start, and the Admiral and I joined later in the week.  During this trip Sidney discovered sand, the ocean, frozen custard and the Boardwalk.  Now, at home, when Sidney is fussy around bed-time we will take him out for a walk as the motion will usually put him right to sleep.  Well, he quickly discovered that in Ocean City this meant another trip to the Boardwalk.  That's right, he'd fake cry and fuss until we found ourselves strolling up and down his new favorite place.  It was the Wife that first made the realization, before the Admiral and I had made it down.  In what was a very poignantly written chat message, I was informed that our adorable 6 month old son was playing her and Nana, shamelessly.  I witnessed his act for myself later that week, and sure enough our little Three-Card Monty player was pulling in us rubes.  On the one hand, this is an amazing leap in cognitive function, predicting the behavior of others and realizing that he can affect outcomes with his behavior.  On the other, we've been had.

2. I've been taught to fetch!: Sidney has been playing with toys for a little while now, and it is always fascinating to watch him examine the objects, turn them in his hands, inevitably shove them in his mouth, and occasionally have them go flying when his exuberance outpaced his grip (l figured he was being a typical physicist and assuming zero friction for purposes of his calculations).  The toy would fly in a random direction and someone (usually Mommy, Daddy, Nana or Abuela) would go retrieve it and give it back.  For a little while it would be a different toy that would go flying, so I assumed (silly me) that we were still dealing with random vector equations; then came the rings.  Sidney has a set of stacking rings that he will meticulously take apart and then play with the rings, mostly throwing them.  I know, great!  He is engaging spatial relations to enable his removal of the rings from their stacked position; full three dimensional reasoning.  You know what else he was engaging in?  Making us get the rings and bring them back.  That's right, we were playing fetch.  I had suspected this much, but it took having him look at a rattle he was playing with (which he until then had not intentionally thrown), look at me, throw the rattle and then look back to me for it to fully sink in; he had us trained.  And, because he is my son, he smiled right at me as if to add an exclamation point to his lesson.  Well played Sidney, well played.

3. Holy crap, we have to move everything!:  This one just happened this week, so it is fresh on the mind.  Sidney had been sitting up for a while now, but only when you put him in that position.  If he fell over, he usually either rolled around, did his half-crawl/half-military drag, or complained until you sat him back up.  Sure you had to keep an eye on him, but once he was down, he was staying down.  Then I received the phone call from the Wife: "Sidney just sat up on his own.  We were on the couch, he was laying there, I turned around, turned back and he was sitting up."  He didn't repeat the feat immediately, so we thought this was a one off ... until the next morning.  He had just been put down for his morning nap when he did it again ... he slid his right leg underneath himself, pushed off and was sitting.  This was amazing.  He had figured out his body position, what limbs needed to bend and move in what direction, how much pressure he needed to lift himself, not to mention the acting on his desire to be sitting up.  This was huge!  So many systems involved and he was doing it at 6 months!  This was great!  If he could do this, he was just a short discovery away from pulling himself u...OH CRAP WE HAVE TO MOVE EVERYTHING.  At that instant our apartment went from wonderful home to baby death-trap.  We have to drop the crib to the lower mattress setting; the coffee table has to go, that thing is just the right height to be dangerous; the wine racks, he might try to pull himself up on them!  We had always known we would need to baby-proof the place, but it was something we had to do down the road.  Well ... it's down the road. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to move everything ... and fetch two rattles that he threw.

Meanwhile, back at the baby food aisle ...

As I mentioned in the last post (cue flashback visual), Sidney is now eating baby food in addition to his formula.  Relevant to this (and to set up this week's humor), I have decided that I will try anything I am going to give Sindey first, partly because I am an over-protective father, but mostly because I want to know the likelihood he is going to spit something out so I can prepare (read: dive for cover).  Let’s face it, if an adult is so repulsed by the flavor of something that it almost goes flying, there is a high probability the wee one is going to be nonplussed and pull a Vesuvius circa 79 CE (we save Krakatoa analogies for explosions out the other end).  For those unfamiliar with baby food, it is usually described as being simply “pureed” food.  Although this coveys the consistency decently, flavor is another matter.  You see, most people season their food, and there are no seasonings in baby food.  It is naked food, if you will (and in front of the children no less!)  We’ve been at this for a few weeks now, so I have sampled a decent variety of the infant offerings made by the various purveyors of fine baby dining (the names of the innocent, and guilty, have been omitted ... mostly because I don't keep track of who makes what).  But, given my hobbies as a Scotch aficionado, amateur oenologist, and general food snob, I could not help but keep notes (go with it people, work with me here) on the gustatory profiles of the different meals we have given Sidney.  So, without further set-up blathering, my blathering about baby food:

1) Bananas:  This tastes like the essence of banana.  Smooth, distinct fruit notes, clean finish.  Varietals include bananas and berries (the berries are present breifly at the introduction, give way to the banana, but return for a hint at finish), bananas and pineapple (the slight tang of the pineapple finishes on the palate) and bananas, apples and oatmeal (don’t ask, but it works).  Dad’s reaction: Mmm, bananas.  Sindey’s reaction: eager consumption.

2) Apples: It’s apple sauce, but smoother.  Varietals include apples and berries (the berries are forefront, give a broader sweetness), apples and pears (the pears and apples complement, but there is a distinct pear finish) and apples and insert random fruit of choice.  In fact, lets just leave fruits, because pretty much the answer is “it tastes like that fruit.”  Dad’s reaction: OK, fruit, I get it.  Sindey’s reaction: eager consumption.

3) Sweet potatoes: Consistency is softer than sweet potato mash, but firmer than the fruits.  Muted sweetness gives way to a bland finish.  Dad’s reaction: needs brown sugar.  Sindey’s reaction: I’ll eat it so long as I am really hungry.

4) Squash: Firmer than the last entry, but no sweetness to be had.  Not quite bland, but close enough.  Squash flavor is identifiable, but not dominant.  Dad’s reaction: needs butter and salt.  Sidney’s reaction:  We’re done after 5 spoonfuls; where’s that formula bottle?

5) Peas: peas.  That’s all I got; peas.  Dad’s reaction: peas.  Sidney’s reaction: pass.

6) Green beans:  Nightmares from youth revisited.  Canned, vaguely metallic introduction followed by hints of rubber, shrubbery and despair.  Dad’s reaction: But I don’t wannnnnt green beans.  Sidney’s reaction: Vesuvius.

7) Ham in ham gravy: The first of our meats, unfortunately, instead of pureeing ham they appear to have described ham to a first generation food replicator and packaged the result.  All of the flavors you would use to describe ham are present, but are somehow horribly wrong.  The best I can say is it looks like pink sludge and tastes only slightly better.  Dad’s reaction: Vesuvius.  Sindey’s reaction: not happening people. Not. Happening.

8) Rice and lentils: Upon opening one is assaulted by the smell of weeds, and it just goes down hill from there.  Dad’s reaction: this tasted like mowing the lawn smells.  Sidney’s reaction: I’m not stupid, I saw his face.  Good day.  I said good day!

9) Chicken and corn:  pleasant on the nose, hints of chicken and corn, gently sweet background.  Finishes savory.  Dad’s reaction: not bad.  Sidney’s reaction: OK, I’ll eat this, but there better be fruit for breakfast tomorrow.

10) Sweet Corn Chowder.  Immediate corn nose, initial sweet notes give way to a complex but hearty corn body, slightly rough finish.  Dad’s reaction: eager consumption.  Sidney’s reaction: why is Dad eating my food?

Depending on the reaction to this entry, I may share further tasting notes.  Management takes no responsibility for any independent tasting undertaken by you after reading the above.  Your mileage may vary.

When last we saw our intrepid crew ...

The Wife (and others) have recently asked why there has not been a blog post for a few months.  The answer is two fold: (a) I am fully aware there are only so many pee, poop and puke posts that folks are going to be interested in reading (certain corners of the internet notwithstanding), so until Sidney started in with new tricks I had hit a content lull; and (b) if there is any spare time on any given day, I pass out.  No, seriously, given the choice between almost any other activity and sleep, I’d take sleep 9 times out of 10.  The Wife, on the other hand, would take murdering me in my sleep half the time, and sleeping the other half.  Why?  Because she gets less sleep than I do, and the sight of me unconscious would rightly drive her to murderous rage.  In short, Baby = Sleep{0}.  It might no be as elegant as Euler’s Equation, but it is no less immutable (let’s call it Sidney’s Equation).  This being said, over the past weeks Sidney has hit some milestones that brought with them fresh comedy (but, not to worry, also poop) and thus we have a new post.  So, in no particular order:

1. Teething.  Let’s start with the symptoms: drooling, fussiness, crying and general irritability.  Now, the baby will also display some of these, in addition to: gassiness, diarrhea (told you) and the urge to chew on anything he can get into his mouth.  Teething is the largest contributor to Sidney’s Equation, or at least we think it is.  The problem being that the symptoms of teething are also the symptoms of indigestion, lack of sleep and general baby mischief.  Luckily, the same “treatments” are recommended for all of these: indigestion drops/tablets, soothing rocking, teething toys and Scotch.  The baby will also benefit from the drops/tablets, soothing rocking and teething toys.  So, what I am trying to say is that after a few weeks of random infant outbursts at all hours of day and night, everyone in the house is drooling, crying, fussing and being generally irritable.

2. Sidney’s First Plane Ride.  We recently flew down to Atlanta to introduce Sidney to the Admiral’s side of the family.  Now, we’ve all seen babies on planes before, but as with most things, actually being the people with the baby changes things drastically.  First, you are going to be bringing a lot of stuff.  A lot.  Our trip was for 2 days and we had the following: Car seat, car seat bag, travel stroller, travel stroller bag, large suitcase full of baby clothing, diapers, toys, spare crib bedding and breathable bumper (let it go), a smaller carry-on suitcase full of emergency baby clothing (in case he pukes or poops all over his current outfit), baby formula, more diapers, an emergency set of clothing for us (in case he pukes or poops all over us), and the Diaper Bag filled to capacity.  And this was just Sidney’s stuff, we also had another large suitcase filled with our clothing.  We weren’t so much parents as Sherpa.  Now, this isn’t even the stressful part.  The stress comes from having previously been the people that saw babies on planes.  We all do it, we see the baby and cringe, thoughts of an infant screaming for the entire flight running through our heads.  So the Wife and I, cognizant of this, were at DEFCON 3, looking for any sign of even a pursed lip so that we could spring into action and attempt to dam the melt-down flood.  As luck would have it, Sidney was absolutely fine and slept for much of the flight.  (Having typed this, our next flight will be a disaster because the Universe has a sick sense of humor.)   Of course, then we had to collect the 3 suitcases, car seat, stroller, diaper bag and metaphorical partridge in the proverbial pear tree.  I am amazed Nana and the Admiral haven’t shot us.

3.  Crawling.  To be fair, Sidney is not officially crawling yet, but he’s fully aware that he can move his body to get to something that is just out of reach.  That being said, his current method is to get on his belly, look up to see the thing he wants, plant his head back down and then thrust himself an inch or so in the direction of the object … dragging his face as he goes.  He plainly is not happy about the face dragging, but he’s determined to get to That Thing™ right now.  I am simultaneously amazed that at 5 months he’s figured out that locomotion is possible, and intrigued that “face dragging” has remained an option.  But, not to worry, any day now I’ll be posting that he figured out that keeping his head up made locomotion easier, but we had to raise everything in the apartment by a foot.

4.  Eating solid food.  This one is also going to get it’s own blog post shortly if for no other reason than I want to describe the flavor of different baby foods in great detail.  Spoiler alert: some of it borders on gustatory assault.  But, for now, let’s leave it at Sidney is eating small portions of “real” food twice a day.  The comedy comes from his almost immediate discovery that he could grab the spoon carrying the food and “help” us feed him.  Translation: baby now has a handful of food, a death grip on the spoon, and you have no idea how to: (a) get the spoon into his mouth; (b) get the spoon out of his hand; and (c) return the spoon into the food container to start all over without the tiny tot flinging, catapulting and/or otherwise launching baby food in some random direction (most likely at you).  The answer is, apparently: very carefully and with little success.  Oh, and solid food turns baby poop into “real poop” after just one feeding.  It’s the gift that keeps on giving.  Has anybody seen my Scotch?

So You Want To Give The Baby A Bath ...

Let's give the baby a bath.  Could it sound any easier?  Any more relaxing?  Any more innocuous?  Of course not; it sounds like the epitome of  "cake walk."  Moreover, does not introducing a bathing schedule for your little bundle of joy make perfect sense?  I mean, is not cleanliness next to godliness, etc and so forth?  The problem is not with the concept (which my semi-rhetorical questions rightfully laud), but with the reality.  You see, no matter how much you prepare and stage for the bath, your baby is going to make sure it is an adventure.  Why?  Because no plan, regardless of how well conceived and meticulously drawn, survives contact with the enemy little bastards, whom just love keeping us on our toes (I keep telling people, forget the What to Expect series, just read Sun Tzu to prepare for child rearing).

The support for my only slightly hyperbolic, but wholly plausible, claim?  Glad you asked.  Behold my scientifically relevant (not at all) and mathematically sound (who are we kidding) listing of the potential outcomes of attempting to give your newborn a bath.  Please note that the list is in order of descending probability, because we might as well start with the sure things and work our way down to the item so unlikely that it has only ever been substantiated by anecdotal evidence proffered by weary travellers around a camp-fire (much like Big Foot, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster and Reasonably Priced Gas):

1) Something will make the baby cry and thrash.  Now, this would not be anywhere near as entertaining if you knew what it was that was going to make the child cry, or even if the same thing made them cry each time.  No, it is a journey through the heart of quantum random number generation.  Being put in the water makes baby cry ... no wait, it doesn't.  Having water splash on the baby's face is fine ... no wait, it is cause for melt-down.  Being disrobed for the bath brings forth the sound of a banshee, no wait, only kidding, disrobing is A OK ... no wait, now it causes two banshees to have a shouting match while fighting over an air-raid siren someone left blaring ... no, never mind, being naked is fine.  Each day brings a new cause for the cacophony, except for the one day when he's absolutely fine for the entire bath ... but starts wailing the moment you take him out of the water.  Son of a ...

2) The baby will pee.  On you, in the tub, on the side of the sink, on the counter ... it's going to go somewhere.  When will the baby pee you ask?  I have no idea.  Sometimes it is when you first put them in the water.  Makes sense, right?  Warm water hits the privates and bam, the baby pees.  Except, sometimes the baby can sit there for a few minutes before peeing, so it isn't the rush of the warm water maybe.  But then sometimes he pees while you are disrobing him before ever getting near the bathtub, which may be caused the by cold air hitting the baby ... however there are also the fun times when he pees on Daddy when proud Papa is standing holding the baby waiting to take him to the bath and Mommy stands there rightfully laughing her head off.  Oh, and there are also days when there is no pee around bath time.  So, essentially, I have no blessed idea when or why exactly there is going to be pee, but there is going to be pee 85% of the time.

3) The baby might poop in the tub.  This one moved up the list thanks to an incident just this week.  "Unfortunately," I was not home to witness the event, but My Wife was (obviously), and so here it is: you put the baby in the bath, go to lather the tyke up, but before you can say "don't you pee in the bath this time" lo and behold ... he has pooped in the water.  Explanations for the phenomenon range from the sensible (the warm water hitting the baby's bottom and tummy relax the sphincter and ... poop), to the plausible (crying tenses the baby's intestinal tract and ... poop), to the paranoid (the little bastards want to mess with us and ... poop).  Hey, I warned you that an overwhelming number of posts would involve this stuff; truth in advertising is all I can say.

4) You could get soaked.  The trick to this entry is not the soaking, because, let's face it, you are putting a baby in tub full of water; if you have any sense, the thought "I may get wet here" has to cross your mind.  No, the reason for this making the list is that you are going to cause the situation more often than the baby does.  Sure, he may splash a little, but that isn't what is going to get you.  Nope, what gets you is that you will either: (a) panic that you may lose your grasp on the wet baby and consequently hold the soaked child tightly to yourself; (b) go to dump the water out of the tub, but miscalculate the amount of water and get a huge back-splash in the sink (oh, yeah, I'm the only one to do this); or (c) get peed on by the tyke as you stand there waiting to put him in the tub as your spouse laughs their head off (hey, soaked is soaked).

5) The baby gets bathed.  It's a pipe dream people.  You manage to get water and a little bit of soap on the wiggle worm, call it a victory.

Clean-up on Aisle 6 ...

Babies make messes, or, more precisely (given that babies do not intentionally create the situations … I think), messes happen in exceedingly close proximity to babies.  Useful as this aphorism may be, it is the more vulgar formulation that is familiar: babies poop, puke and pee all over the place (no, seriously, all over the place).  As I have previously mentioned, poop/puke/pee posts are likely to be plentiful given that for the first year or so of life, it seriously seems like humans produce an inordinate amount of all 3, and parents traditionally deal with the tsunami of waste in comical fashion (at least My Wife and I do).  Today’s post was inspired by a spectacular diaper explosion that not only saw Sidney’s poop and pee flying to and fro, but came within 1 or 2 psi of bladder pressure from making My Wife pee herself with laughter.  That’s right, my kid peeing all over the place almost caused My Wife to pee all over the place. 

It started innocently enough.  We realized Sidney needed a change (thanks to a wetness strip on his diaper, more below), and took him over to the changing table (indispensable piece of furniture).  Off comes the diaper, full of pee.  Suddenly - and I am not talking “oh my, that was unexpected” here, I am talking “SWEET BABY JESUS, ALL I DID WAS BLINK” – our beloved child decided it was time to imitate a Play-Doh Fun Factory™ being operated by Popey on a spinach, steroid and cocaine bender.  As My Wife wisely dove out of the way of the avalanche (poop-alanche?), I attempted to keep Sidney from slamming his legs into the pile of baby butt soft-serve (you’re welcome for the mental image) forming underneath him.  No sooner than we thought this was under control, he starts peeing … a lot.  So now we’re keeping him from getting the crap-sundae on his legs while simultaneously attempting to aim the lawn-sprinkler away from himself, us and the furniture.  When the reality of the situation hit her, My Wife starts laughing and mid guffaw announces that if she doesn’t stop laughing soon she will pee herself.  I initially thought this casual hyperbole, until I noticed she was bending over and fighting to keep her legs pinned together.  Mr. Poopy the Pee Sprinkler on the changing table and the Lovely Mrs. Don’t Let Me Pee Myself to my right.  Other than going for cheap potty humor, what was the purpose of telling you this anecdote?  Well, believe it or not clean-up of this fiasco was a snap thanks to the following indispensable items:

1) Housetraining/Pee-pee pads.  Hear me out people.  You know that awesome changing table I keep telling you about?  Well, imagine what would happen each time we had a poop and/or pee explosion.  All of this would end up on the changing table, necessitating numerous cleanings and replacements of the table tops/padded covers.  You know what house-training pads are made to absorb/protect against?  Pee and poo!  You lay one of these bad boys down on the changing table and if (and by if, I mean when) there is the poo/pee explosion, it hits the disposable pad.  You clean up the kid, wrap up the crap, diaper, and soiled cleaning implements (more below) in the pad and toss the whole mess (sans kid).  The icing?  These things are insanely cheap.   A low cost, high impact solution to an omnipresent (when you have an infant) problem.  Also, when people come over and see the box sitting in the nursery, you can always quip of course you have the pads, you’re house training an infant.  (Management of this Blog takes no responsibility for any calls to Child Protective Services made by your guests whom lack a sense of humor and/or common sense.)

2) Cotton Squares.  For the first few weeks, use of even the most gentle diaper wipes is not advised because you can (and will) irritate the hell out of the baby’s bits with all the changes/cleanings you’ll be doing.  Using cotton balls in place of the wipes is recommended, but only by people who have never tried to wipe the poop coated ass of a kicking baby with a wet cotton ball (or who have, but want to share their misery).  In a flash of inspiration (and luck), I picked up cotton squares reasoning that (a) they, like the cotton balls, were 100% soft cotton; (b) because they were square pads they would not ball up and fall apart like cotton balls, and could be folded so as to get poop out of baby folds; and (c) they are marketed as being sturdy enough to take 12 layers of make-up off of your average Jersey Shore wanna-be (I likely made this last part up).  In any event, they work like a charm.

3) Diapers With Wetness Indicators.  I have no idea if all diapers come with wetness indicators, but they should.  I cannot over-state the utility of these things.  Most of the time, your baby will let you know when the diaper needs changing (of course, you may not figure out this is what they are telling you at first … someone really should offer “infant” as a language course), but every so often they don’t.  Be it because they are asleep, in a position where they don’t feel the wet diaper, or simply in a mood to mess with you (this happens more often than you think), you don’t get the warning.  Aside from not wanting to leave your child soaking in their waste (that’s right, I just played the guilt card … I am well on my way to full blown parent mode), the more pee that soaks into a diaper the more likely you are to have an over-flow situation.  You don’t want an over-flow situation.  As I have previously commented, baby pee is rancid stuff.  I remain unconvinced that it is not in fact produced by his kidneys, but instead teleported from one of the seven rivers of the underworld (given the stench, I am thinking the Cocytus or Acheron) to the diaper.  So knowing that the diaper is nearing saturation is valuable information.  The line turns blue, you change the diaper.  No guess work, no false alarms and, most importantly, fewer spills of hell water.

4) Dreft Stain Remover.  There will be messes.  This cannot be understated.  Sometimes the messes will get on bibs, burp cloths, clothing, bedding, you name it; and you’ll need to clean it up.  Particularly troublesome are formula spills/spit up/stains.  You see, baby formula is wonderfully high in protein (a very good thing for the baby), which, as anybody who has ever watched a detergent commercial (or an episode of CSI) knows, makes for particularly nasty stains (insert dissertation on proteins' reactive nature and ability to make strong chemical bonds to carbon molecules here).  On top of its amazing staining properties, protein also coagulates very quickly when exposed to heat and enzymes (see: digestion).  This means that when a baby spits up, you get a clumping gelatinous staining mess that tenaciously adheres to fabrics.  To top it all off, urine and poo also have a high protein content (different proteins, obviously, but proteins none-the-less).  Sidney is 3 weeks old.  So far he averages 4 spit-up and/or pee induced clothing changes a day (have I mentioned messes spring up around babies often?), and at least 3 t-shirt splatters a week.  At any given moment there is baby formula, pee, poop and/or spit-up on something.   You want the stains lifted and the clumps washed off?   Dreft does the job.  Correction, Dreft eradicates stains.  Intellectually, I understand that as a detergent it is simply an amphiphilic (likely cationic) surficant (albeit an ingeniously formulated one).  But when you see a giant stain disappear in seconds, it might as well be magic.  Seriously, this stuff makes OxyClean look like seltzer water.  You have a baby?  Get Dreft.

The Baby Ate My Homework ...

It should be no surprise (at least not if you have read prior posts) to hear that My Wife and I like to be prepared.  We research, read, inquire, analyze, poke, prod and experiment (and not always in that order).  Personally, this methodology has served me well in life, and I was relatively certain it would work with child rearing.  My plan was steadily bolstered as My Wife bought more books, found more web sites and otherwise dug up more information on all things baby.  You see, I am an academic at heart, thus having reference materials available gives me a sense of comfort.  The fact I am writing about this, however, obviously means this was a false sense of comfort (because, honestly, there is little humor to be had from “and the plan worked out perfectly”).  The post hoc “obvious” reason for the failure of my plan is that no matter how much reading and preparing you do, raising a child is the epitome of “you have to actually do it to understand it.”  Now, this is not because we are dealing with some esoteric art, bordering on ethereal knowledge, which is incapable of conveyance by something as clumsy and brutish as human language.  No, the truth is ridiculously mundane: every baby is going to be just different enough from every other baby so as to awry (go with me here) the best laid plans of mice and men (yes, a tortured use of Burns’s poem and Steinbeck’s title was the pay-off; sue me).   In short, apparently you learn to be a parent by being a parent.

Personally, this revelation, although very helpful, is a bit anticlimactic.  More to the point, given that we are still so early on in our parenthood, the urge to romanticize the process still grips me.  It is in this vein that I started thinking, what if there was a way to effectively study to be a parent?  A baccalaureate in parenting program, if you will.  What would the course work look like, knowing what I do now?  Well, I am glad you (and by “you” I mean “I”) asked:

1)  Milk/Formula Dynamics (Applied Chemistry).  For at least the first 6 months of life, your child should only ingest two things: Breast Milk and/or Formula.  In this class you learn how to store, handle and dispense these volatile substances.  Topics covered: Hungry Child Thermodynamics (a bottle takes twice as long to warm up if the child is hungry, three times as long if he is screaming); Inverse Fluidity (flow through a bottle nipple will slow the closer it is to the child’s mouth, but accelerate near clothing, furniture or portions of the child’s face that is not the mouth); and Variable Stain Setting (staining potential of the fluids is directly proportional to the value of the item spilled on).

2)  The Newborn Parent Mind (Abnormal Psychology).  You now are 100% responsible for keeping an otherwise helpless human alive.  This course will examine behavioral manifestations of this responsibility.  Topics covered:  Obsessive Hovering; Obsessive Breathing Checks; Obsessive Movement Checks; Obsessive Diaper Checks; Did He Just Cry Checks; and, No Seriously Is He Still Breathing Checks.

3)  Baby Lifting (Phys. Ed).  You will have to maneuver through certain activities holding a child from time to time, and this class teaches you the proper techniques.  Topics covered: Mounting and dismounting the couch with a sleeping baby; preparing the bottle one handed; speed eating; cleaning up one handed; and proper holding of a child with soiled diaper (the advanced extended arm techniques).

4)  Sleep Seminar (Classics).  Much like Homer, Ovid, Virgil, Seneca and Boethius, sleep is now an artifact of the past.  Topics covered: Remembering sleep; Just one hour … for the love of God; and I bet I can catch 10 minutes of sleep on that stool over there. 

5) Expulsion Mechanics (Applied Physics).  Fluids and solids of varying viscosity and density, respectively, will be expelled by your child at unpredictable speeds.  Although prevention is an impossibility, containment and damage minimization is possible through a deeper understanding of the mechanics of the “blow-outs”.  Topics Covered:  Urine Pressure Differentials (pee flows faster the further from the diaper); Secondary Poop Blast (the initial poop’s contact with oxygen can cause an immediate second poop); Puke Vectors (puke will travel along whatever non-linear path necessary to reach your shirt); and Catastrophic Chain Blow-Out Dynamics (cleaning up any one expulsion and cause blow-outs in any other system).  

Attendance is taken in all classes, with the exception of the Sleep Seminar, which gets cut with alarming regularity.