The Story About the Baby, Volume 40.

So what has our nine month old daughter Cordelia been up to? Well, her crawling speed has doubled in the last week. She can really scuttle now. And she has thus learned that those big, looming, white objects (which are technically referred to as “walls”) are not, in fact, theoretical abstractions but actual objects which require actual maneuvering to avoid.

When Cordelia bonks her head and cries, I do the expected and pick her up and comfort her and all that crap. But I feel a strange lack of concern and sympathy. I have this sad, merciless, Darwinian element in my brain that says “Well next time don’t smack your head like that, goofball!”

But it’s all right. It’s like dating. As long as you create the external appearance of interest and concern, you can get through just about anything.

Non-Consensual Ham

Cordelia is a hearty eater, cheerfully wolfing down limitless quantities of oatmeal and pureed fruit. However, like all growing bodies, she needs protein. And, like all sensible creatures, she is horrified by the boiled, chemically treated meat slime they sell in those little jars.

I suppose we could solve this problem by preparing meat and processing it on our own. But we have found it to be much easier and more amusing to find ways to trick Cordelia into eating jarred meat.

The best technique, of course, is to feed her something she likes (say, apples), and then occasionally throw in a surprise spoonful of meat. We play fair with this. When I feed her some apples, I say “Apples” and when I feed her ham, I say “Ham.” If this isn’t warning enough for her, it’s not my problem.

The problem with this technique is that, when fed unexpected meat, she slams her jaws shut for several minutes, wasting mommy and daddy’s valuable time.

We have other tricks. One parent will play peek-a-boo with Cordelia, getting her to laugh and creating a valuable moment of vulnerability. We hand her toys to suck on and duck the food in when she opens her mouth. We get her to laugh by lightly pinching her belly with salad tongs. (Don’t call Child Protective Services. She really seems to like this. Babies are dopey.)

And Then, Like Magic, the Problem Was Solved

Recently, my wife, in a moment of peculiar empathy, discovered that the baby likes yogurt and yogurt contains protein. She also doesn’t have any problem feeding Cordelia huge, white, creamy spoonfuls of live bacteria (which I picture as multitudes of pale, microscopic cockroaches).

So we’re giving the meat a rest for now. It’s a pity. The sooner we get Cordelia to believe that meat is a necessary part of life, the less chance that she’ll get a bee in her bonnet and turn into some sort of freakish vegetarian in her teen years.

What I Dread

When I put nasty food in Cordelia’s mouth, she gets this adorable and disgusted expression, and then she swallows it.

She does not currently realize that, when she has something unpleasant in her mouth, she can send it back where it came from at high velocity.

When she realizes this, being a parent will suck so much more than it does now.

Warning When Playing With the Baby

People love holding our adorable baby. They grab her and hug her and immediately forget what harm sharp little baby fingernails can do to the human cornea. They don’t realize that those chubby little legs can pack surprising force and can do things to the jaw. Or the poor, hapless testicles.

Therefore, when a new person grabs our baby, I’ve started giving a standard warning:

“Remember, just because shes helpless, doesn’t mean she’s harmless.”

Sometimes, the Brain Can Store Two Things At Once

Today, when feeding her, she absentmindedly tried to grab the spoon I was holding while staring out the window.

It was nice to see her trying to do two things at the same time. You can’t do something absentmindedly without having a little bit of mind to begin with.

The Beautiful Future That Will Be Brought To Us By Cloning

Cloning has been in the news a lot lately. People, it appears, are bothered by it. Whenever someone clones a monkey or a Mormon or something, all the sob-sisters and worrywarts and wanksticks and pussysauruses come out of the woodwork and piss and moan about the horrible nightmare future that awaits us if we tamper in God’s domain.

Well, fuck them. The sooner we tamper in God’s domain, the better. My greatest fear is that I will die before I see a world populated by bizarre, mutated products of the warped human mind. And that is why I want to get a cloned Teletubby.

Why, you may ask, do I want a cloned Teletubby?

Well, people who know me personally may well suspect that I want a cloned Teletubby so I can have sex with it. That’s a good guess but, believe me, if I had the choice of anything I could clone for sex, it would NOT be a Teletubby. (The first thing I would clone for sex would, of course, be me.)

No, I want a cloned Teletubby for my daughter, because she loves Teletubbies. My favorite trick of hers to show off to friends now is her concentration trick. At nine months, she can already be fascinated by the TV for up to fifteen minutes at a time, thanks to those adorable Teletubbies.

She deserves to live in a world where she can see something charming and loving on TV and then have one in her bedroom, sleeping at her feet, hugging her, making those aggravating little noises they make. Mommy occasionally having to comb bits of Teletubby waste out of the creature’s matted fur seems a small price to pay for my little girl’s happiness. Plus, I suspect, once we could mass produce them, they would be cheaper than ponies.

And, when she tires of it, I’d put it in the trunk, drive up the Interstate an hour or two, and leave it on the side of the road. It could run into the woods and frolic and find its own people and eat squirrels or whatever. And then I’d go out and buy my daughter a cloned living Barbie.

My honest opinion? People who oppose cloning just don’t love their children as much as I love mine.