Eldritch Aims

Chief among the parenting principles which I am young, foolish and untested enough to possess is the notion that one should HAVE as few principles as possible. This is part of my larger theory that the universe truly enjoys making its sentient inhabitants retract, recant and generally eat their words and beliefs like so many spit-drenched graham crackers. While I cannot objectively prove this theory, I've encountered way too many fundamentalist Christians with delightful, leather-swathed gay offspring to dismiss it entirely.

That the Big U should take extra pleasure in blasting new parents' intentions to smithereens is no surprise; most of us approach this massively daunting task with a level of earnestness not seen since we first read "Our Bodies, Ourselves" in seventh grade and vowed to retain our maiden names, celebrate womynhood and run to the next Lilith Fair as fast as our unshorn little legs would carry us.

Despite my belief that standing on principle is generally as wise as standing on a banana peel, I have managed to accumulate a few of my own over the years (principles, not banana peels... although I do have a couple of those distributed throughout the house, getting nicely black 'n fragrant in case any lizards wander in and need a pick-me-up). And, as I should've been all too aware, it was only a matter of time before they were shot irrevocably to hell.

Belief: I am the diapering Zen Master.

Based On: My ability to swap out a J.Q.'s sodden undergarment with one hand while restraining his screeching, flailing, plush block-brandishing form with the other.

Also, my secret desire to be the fall cover story of "Ultimate Parenting" magazine.

[cue extreme diaper-changing montage, perhaps set to Iggy Pop's "Search & Destroy"...]

• Jul changing J.Q.'s diaper while both balance precariously atop a surfboard (with J.Q. sucking on the tentacle-end of a squid).
  
• Jul wielding a wipe in one hand while employing the OTHER to cling to the side of one of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur!
  
• J.Q. and mama drifting in mid-air, suspended from matching parachutes, while a package of Econo-Tushiee Brand Discount Diapers floats gently towards them on its own chute.
  
• End with Jul on stage at CBGB's, rocking out with Mr. Pop himself... LOOK OUT, BABY, I GOT WIPIN' TECHNOLOGY! IF YOU START FLINGIN' POO, YOU'LL OWE ME AN APOLOGY!
  

The Universe's Way of Letting Me Know I'm Roughly As Full of Shit As An 8-AM Huggie: last Saturday, following the inaugural diaper change of the day, I noticed that our house was still awfully... fragrant. "Damn," said I, "Wonder if the Diaper Dekor isn't all it's cracked up to be? Huh huh huh... crack!" An hour passed, J.Q. and I staged some baby-centric Consumer Reports tests ("While DuPont Stainmastoo a good cawpet, it not weawwy stand up to da wigors of pwotwacted Goldfish-gwinding") and yet the odor of Eau De Feces did not disappate. "Aw, man," I said, "Maybe I'd better go empty that stupid diaper pail." I stood up, brushed my hair behind my ears... and felt a patch of dry, crackly material on my cheek. "Oh... no!" Oh, YES. Thankfully, I had not ventured out into the world with a dried wad of dung on my face. After a "Crying Game"-esque scrubbing, my face was as good as new. My ego, however, may never recover.

Belief: A good parent can prevent their child from ingesting foreign objects.

Based On: the cheesy videos I was forced to watch in Infant/Child CPR class, in which a dippy daycare teacher's ill-advised coffee break invariably led to Resuscitation Ricky getting an entire set of Tinker Toys lodged in his little plastic trachea.

The Universe's Way of Telling Me to Go Suck an Erector Set: "Come over for dinner!" said Caer last weekend, "I really miss you and the baby!"

Yes, Caer. LET'S take my toddler to a child-free person's non-child-proofed house! After THAT, why don't we go on a field trip to the foundry, THEN take a spin around the Discount Faqir Supply Warehouse, your one-stop source for beds of nails, strings of razorblades and snake-infested wicker goods?

In all honesty, we had a lovely time at Caer's place. Good times, good company, good food (pizza bedecked with buffalo sauce and blue cheese? Genius!). As always, J.Q. enjoyed the opportunity to explore a new environment. Unfortunately for us, most of the exploration took place in his drooly little mouth.

Every sixty seconds, one of us shrieked across Caer's apartment. Our alerts ranged from, "Aaagh! He's got a safety pin!", to, "Aaagh! He's got seventy-eight cents' worth of change!" (Ed. note: this child resembles nothing so much as a vending machine in hell. Eats all available coinage, returns nothing except the occasional Diaper Danish... which, while often studded with intact blueberries, isn't really suitable for human consumption).

Take That Out of Your Mouth RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW-athon 2006 culminated with a rousing, "AAAAGH! CAER! HE'S GOT NAIL POLISH REMOVER!"

"It's okay," chirped Caer, sounding for all the world like a housewife in a 50's television commercial, "It's got BITREX, the INGESTION DETERRENT!" "Dude," I hissed, prying the bottle of Cutex X-Tra Acetoney out of J.Q.'s little claws, "That DOES NOT MAKE IT A GOOD IDEA."

Belief: No baby-talk. No, no baby-wayby talkie-walkie, no, no, no! WAIT A SECOND! NO FUCKING BABY-TALK!

Based On: My moratorium on gooing and gahing was based on two factors: for one, baby-talk has always made me a bit uneasy; it seems like the infantile equivalent of speaking REALLY LOUD in an attempt to coerce a non-native speaker into understanding English ("THEN YOU TAKE THE TURNPIKE- " "Que?" "THE TURNNNNPIIIIIKE!" "Que?" "El Turnpike-o!").

Also, I entered parenthood with vague, unarticulated dreams of raising a Really Smart Kid; unarticulated, perhaps, because I was also somewhat afraid of creating my own tiny version of "Quiz Kid Donny Smith" from "Magnolia". I doubted, however, that either a genius OR an emotionally-damaged freak would benefit from baby-talk. So I refrained... except, alas, when MOST inappropriate.

A few recent lapses:

Following a day during which all of baby's communication, from "Hello, mother, I am delighted to see you" to "My word, biting the coffee table is MOST unpleasant" was expressed via ultrasonic shriek (att'n, local bats - I know it SOUNDED like you were all being invited over for a giant gnat party, but it was a big mistake):

"Keep it up and you're going to go to BABY PRISON! That's right! And you are WAAAAY too pretty for pwison! You're gonna be somebody's BIT-TH!"

Following a particularly horrible home haircut:

"Oh, no! Mama gave you a MUWWITT! It's business in fwont, poo-poo in back!"

While driving around Suburbiaville, listening to "Immigrant's Song":

Jul: "J.Q., this is Wed Zeppwin! Dey GOOD!"
Robert Plant: "AAA-AAA-AAAAA-AAA!"
J.Q.: "AAA-AAA-AAAAA-AAA!"
Jul: "Oh my god. This is truly my proudest day as a parent."