Children's Clothing: Magical Happy Funtime World

One day this week, I was dressing Leah (for the second time that day, after she did an impressive job of spitting up all over herself) and talking to her, as I often do, about the world around her.  We talk about lots of things when she's getting dressed, because I'm not very fast at it, and because she thoroughly enjoys not wearing pants.  On this day, as on most days, we went through a ritual: I said, "What do you want to wear today, Leah?"  And she flung her little arms about, and I reached into her drawer and pulled out a brown onesie and proceeded, as I always do, to explain it to her.  "How about this one?  It's brown.  Can you say 'brown'?  And look, it has some animals on it.  It has a giraffe, and a rhinosorus, and an elephant, and a crocodile.  And it says right here 'best friends.'  And that's--"

And I stopped talking, because it hit me right then that my daughter's clothing was complete bullshit.

I think I was OK until I got to the crocodile.  Someday, we'll take Leah to the zoo, and she'll say, "Mommy, why is the alligator all by himself and not with the giraffe?  I thought they were friends."  And I will have to say, "No, Honey, I'm sorry.  In real life the crocodile and his very sharp teeth would tear the giraffe to shreds if he could."  Not to mention all the complexities of different habitats, which I really hope some biology teacher explains someday, because although I can play Zoo Tycoon like a boss, I fully admit to the occasional purchase of a penguin or peacock just so I can put it in with the lions and see what happens.

I've since taken a survey of my daughter's clothing, and I noticed that most of it has this same "happy world where everyone and everything loves each other" motif.  The animals all smile and have big, innocent eyes and look absolutely adorable and not vicious at all.  And I get that we want our children to feel safe, and to protect them from the knowledge that there are bad things in the world, and to teach them to love all animals and whatever.  That's all well and good.  But she doesn't care what's on her shirt.  When we say that the giraffe and the elephant and the rhino and the crocodile are best friends, who is that message for?  I could put her in blue plaid with orange polka dots and she wouldn't know the difference.  All her current wardrobe is teaching her is that she can feel free to go climbing over the bars of the gorilla habitat at the zoo and it will hug her and cuddle her and smile at her for all of time and they will be the most happiest of best friends forever.

I'm pretty sure the most honest piece of clothing she owns is a onesie that says, "I love my mommy, even though she's a bitch."

Shooting baby up with viruses (or, Where I judge the Hippies)

Leah is now two months old.  Developmentally, she has progressed to holding conversations with the patterns on my animal-print body pillow.  Adorable as fuck, but I continue to have concern for the child's ability to engage in conversation with animated objects.

Reaching the two-month mark also means that the children of all Normal Parents get their first shots.

(I try really hard not to judge other parents, but I put on my Judging You hat when parents choose not to vaccinate their babies.  Jenny McCarthy is not a doctor.  Her kid is autistic and she couldn't deal, so she had to blame someone.  She's an airhead, and if you make medical decisions based on her ideas, you're an airhead, too.)

But I digress.

Leah went in for her first shots.  I'll be honest, I don't remember what most of them are.  I trust the Medical Professionals that they are the right ones and are important and if I have a question and need to call the nifty Nurse On Call, she will know what I mean when I say, "She got her two-month shots."  Because she's a nurse. And not Jenny McCarthy.  I only remember that TdaP (DTaP?  Pad-Thai?) is one of them, and specifically that the "P" stands for "pertussis", otherwise known as Whopping Cough, which is at the top of my Important Shit list on account of said disease is on the rise in our very county because..why?

...


Oh.  That's right.  Those pro-communicable disease people.

  And as Leah may very well interact with some of these children at daycare, I wanted to make damn sure she got her first step toward being inocculated against their parents' stupidity.

But I digress again.

Here is a brief summary of how the visit went:
- Nurse asked me a bunch of questions.  I mentioned that she (Leah, not the nurse) spits up a lot.
- Leah demonstrated this by spitting up on the exam table.
- Then she cried.
- Nurse left.  Leah calmed down after being picked up and allowed to stare at the wall over my shoulder.
- Doctor came in.  Poked at the baby.  Pronounced her to be very strong, pretty tall and sorta skinny.  All in all, "average."
- Nurse returned bearing Tray of Evil Things.
- Nurse gave a vaccine in drink form.  Leah had a new Favorite Thing Ever for five seconds.
- Nurse instructed me to hold baby's hands so she could jab baby in thighs with sharp things.
- Baby turned beet red and screamed as though the world was coming to an end.
- I laughed.

Yes, I laughed.  And then I bundled up my baby to take her home, and she realized she was in her Safe Place as soon as the 5-point harness was secured, and she stopped crying.  It was very much like taking my cats to the vet, except that Leah didn't pee in the corner or try to knock the treats container on the floor.

My only regret in laughing at her (and spending the next five minutes telling her that her life is really not that terrible and she should calm the fuck down) is that I think she got wise to the fact that I was making fun of her.  She spent the rest of the night being an absolute fusspot.  So I did what any good mother would do.

I left her alone with her father for an hour while I went shopping.

Paranoia, paranoia, everybody's coming to get me...

My father suddenly visits a lot.

When he cannot visit, he calls.

On Monday, I had to call him and tell him that, due to the very busy week ahead, I didn't have time to just sit and chat this week, but he was welcome to come over and help me with household chores or yard work or baby-tending.

He did not come over this week.

Once we got that all settled, the conversation steered to a number of other things.  First he asked about the baby's well-being, and I said what I always say when people ask how the baby is doing.  I said, "She's fine.  This week she _____________ (learned to reach for things)."  And he said, "Oh, that's great, and by the way, did you ever consider the fact that if you leave Leah's bedroom door open at night and someone is walking by outside, they might see there is a baby inside?"

This completely broke my brain.

I took a few moments to blink and say nothing and try to reboot my mental faculties.  Then I decided that he couldn't possibly be implying what it sounded like he was implying and I must have misunderstood.  So, like an idiot, I opened my word-hole and said, "What?"

"You know.  Someone might break in and take her."

(I will choose to ignore the part of me that wants to write about how this is a completely inappropriate thing to say to a new mother, or any mother, ever, on the face of the Earth for all of time, and how I stayed up half the night worrying about it.) 

I calmly told my father that we always close both of Leah's bedroom doors at night, and that even if we didn't, the only way anyone would be able to possibly see into her bedroom would be if they were already in our breezeway.  So if someone was going to steal Leah away out of her bedroom, they would need to already know that we have an infant, and that she sleeps in that particular bedroom.  Otherwise, we'd be looking for a baby-snatcher who goes around, creepily looking into everyone's open windows and doors, looking for a baby to steal.

And then I hung up the phone and had a freakout.  And I continued to quietly freak out about it for the rest of the week.  Logic has no place in the mind of a new mom, no matter how casual and laid-back said mother is.  

But I don't blame my father for his lapse in judgment.  I blame the media, which jumps on the stories of missing white children like a pack of rabid dogs and makes TV movies about this shit for Lifetime.

The majority of Bad People do not stranger-kidnap infants.  You know why?  Because taking care of one is really hard.  Also, they cry a lot.  Also, they require a multitude of care-taking supplies that cost a lot of money that would severely cut into any ransom.  And this is encompassing all infants - nevermind Miss Leah's very special lungs and the fact that she is, hands down, the loudest and least patient baby I have ever met.  If anyone did steal her, she would make sure they immediately regretted their decision and they would probably put her back and go in search of a baby more conducive to their scheme.

But as I said, that's not going to happen.  It's not going to happen because when newborns disappear in real life, eventually the (inevitably very public) case almost always leads to a member of the family, an estranged parent, or a family friend.  So let's just make a deal: If you are reading this blog, you agree not to steal my baby, and I will agree not to murder you in the face.

Also, as a general PSA, please do not go around suggesting to parents that someone may steal their child out of their bedroom at night.  It's really not helpful at all.

Now that we're all square on the baby-snatching front, maybe I can get some sleep.

Someday, we will have a lot of parent/teacher conferences.

Since Leah's arrival, my husband and I have been trying to tone down our use of profanity.

Well.  Sort of trying.

Kind of.

It's not going well.

So one day, as I was crossing the living room floor and managed to trip over something (possibly my own feet, I don't know), I said, "Shit."  And then I immediately turned to Leah and advised, "That is a word you shouldn't say."

Later that same day, for reasons I don't recall, I said, "Fuck."  And then I turned to the baby again and said, "That is another word you shouldn't say."

And then I realized that if we cannot control our language around the baby, she at least ought to be advised of the words she shouldn't say.  Otherwise, how would she ever know which parts of our conversations are just for grown-ups?  She might be sitting in a third-grade social studies class, learning about government, and the teacher would say, "Our country has two major political parties, Democrats and Republicans," and Leah would gasp and scold her teacher for using the word "Republican."

(This, in case you were curious, is the same way I intend to approach the subject of sex with her someday: She is going to have it, and I would rather have her get the correct information from her father and myself than to trust the public education system to do it properly.  I am still horrified that in middle school, my sex ed class began with the teacher writing the word "ABSTINENCE" on the blackboard in 72-point font and underlining it with red colored chalk.  No, Leah is going to learn about sex properly, and not from some boy in the back of the bus with a magazine.)

But we have many-several years before she starts putting her Ken doll on top of the Barbie doll and furtively looking around to make sure no one's watching.

For now, swearing is the priority, and so when she was awake and alert, I put Leah in my lap and said, "Now listen.  There are some words that Mommy and Daddy say that you should not say ever.  Or... well, can you at least wait until you're 12?"  And then I proceeded to list them for her:

Shit
Fuck
Crap
Bitch, and while we're at it, comma-son of a
Asshole
Asswipe
Douchenozzle
Turd Gobbler

Then I realized she was looking up at me with the most adorable shit-eating grin you ever did see, and I said, "We are so screwed."

And then I said, "Don't say 'screw'."

But, no, seriously.  I should probably just stop talking in front of the baby for, like, forever.