Our ten month old daughter Cordelia continues to develop at great speed. Babies are great for that. Every day, her desperate quest for mobility moves visibly closer to completion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A mere week ago, she was able to stand up only through a combination of anger, desperation, and dumb luck. Now she is standing up all the time, using anything within reach to support herself. It is now very hazardous to lie on the floor in our house, as one\u2019s delicate body parts will be used by Cordelia to push herself up. My wife\u2019s breasts, which are only now getting over the horrible trauma of breast feeding, have repeatedly found themselves used by our daughter in a much more painful and less dignified fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since babies have teeny, teeny brains, the whole standing-up thing has driven everything else out of Cordelia\u2019s mind. Clapping her hands? Gone. Saying \u201cDa da\u201d? Gone. Now she is completely focused on movement and hoping against hope that somehow, when mommy and daddy are distracted for just a moment, she can climb into the refrigerator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMom! Daddy Is Entrapping Me!\u201d<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Like many parents, I own a copy of the omnipresent tome \u201cWhat To Expect the First Year.\u201d And thus, like many parents, I religiously check the milestone lists at the beginning of the chapter for each month. I read what my baby \u201cshould be able to\u201d, \u201cWill probably be able to\u201d, and \u201cmay even be able to\u201d do, trying to gauge whether my little angel is dumb or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I have watched with horror as my daughter went from a baby who could do just about everything on all the lists to someone who could barely hang on to the \u201cprobably be able to\u201d. I started to suspect that the ever more difficult lists late at the end of the book were just a conspiracy to make parents feel like jackasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At least Cordelia has always managed everything in \u201cShould be able to\u201d section, the section where, if the baby can\u2019t do it, you are advised to \u201ccheck with the doctor.\u201d This is the list with things like \u201cBreathe\u201d and \u201cBlink.\u201d And, after eight months or so, \u201cMove.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But now my most paranoid suspicions have turned out to be true. I looked at what Cordelia should be learning this month and found this in the \u201cShould be able to\u201d section: \u201cunderstand word \u2018no\u2019 (but not always obey it)\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wow. This is bullshit in so many ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, how the fuck am I supposed to check whether Cordelia understands \u201cno\u201d or not? I mean, it\u2019s not like I\u2019ll say \u201cNo.\u201d and she\u2019ll look up at me and say \u201cOh, I am sorry father. I had no idea that I was not supposed to stick my tongue in the power socket. I shalt remove it forthwith.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plus, she\u2019s a baby. We ain\u2019t talking laserlike focus here. She will stop doing anything she\u2019s doing in a few seconds, whether I say anything or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, unlike pretty much any baby milestone (like sitting up), the word \u201cno\u201d is something we have to specifically teach to her. And how are we supposed to do that? She\u2019s not some foul demonspawn or creature of pure evil. (Yet.) She doesn\u2019t do anything bad. We haven\u2019t had many reasons to say \u201cNo.\u201d to her! What? Am I supposed to set up situations where she can be bad, just so I can tell her not to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, this is exactly what I have been doing. All my bottles of liquor are still on their pre-parenthood shelf at floor level, so I occasionally let Cordelia see the booze. Interested, she crawls toward it. Then, at the last moment, I swoop down, say \u201cNo!\u201d, pick her up, carry her away, and drop her in the corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s the baby equivalent of playing fetch with your dog and faking the throw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s entrapment, plain and simple. Normally, I wouldn\u2019t resort to this, but the book makes it very clear that Cordelia has two weeks to understand the word \u201cno\u201d (but not always obey it). And if I fail, the book says I have to take her to the doctor, and that is a pain in the ass and they\u2019ll jab needles into her until it isn\u2019t fun anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Time For Her Dose of Vitamin T<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of the generally orderly teething progressing described by the books (four teeth every four months or so, progressing in an orderly fashion from front of mouth to back), Cordelia\u2019s teeth are coming in in a bizarre, semi-random order, complete with unpredictable periods of pained, screaming fury. We had thought that her teeth weren\u2019t coming in. It turns out they were, just farther back in, but we couldn\u2019t tell because whenever I tried to check Cordelia objected and tried to scratch out my eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (To me, one of the most disappointing things about babies is the way they refuse to meekly accept anything their parent decides is good for them. I assume this changes later on.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her teeth are coming in weirdly. If the current pattern holds, she\u2019s going to have one tooth sprout out of her chin soon, and another appear up her nose. And that will suck, because if anyone has invented a teething ring you can jam up a baby\u2019s nostril, I haven\u2019t seen it for sale yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (But if it does exist, I\u2019m sure Babies-R-Us has a really expensive, shitty one.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since she was in so much discomfort, we started giving her more pain vacations. That\u2019s when I started to give her a shot of Baby Tylenol (or, as I call it, Vitamin T) before she went to sleep. The alternative is an all-natural, purely undrugged, organic baby who stayed quiet for a whole thirty minutes before completely freaking out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I am concerned. My wife is worried. Cordelia used to dread the coming of the Baby Tylenol, and the \u201cScrape the sticky goo off the face into her mouth with the dropper\u201d game was one I was getting very good at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Cordelia has since developed a taste for Tylenol. It\u2019s sort of creepy. She sees it coming, and her mouth springs wide open. When she can, she grabs the bottle and gnaws on it, no doubt trying to get that sweet red elixir to pour forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know I come across as a very casual, unconcerned father, but there are limits. TV is one thing, but I don\u2019t want to be raising a cute little ten month old druggie. If she wants to get her all crazy with mind-altering chemicals, well, that\u2019s what college is for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her TV Watching Skills Improve<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Cordelia still gets roughly one viewing of Teletubbies a day. I\u2019ve only just observed how educational that show can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, some background. The Teletubbies are these four cute, furry, insipid creatures who frolic and put on dresses and \u201clove each other very much.\u201d They also have televisions implanted in their stomachs. It is never adequately explained whether the TVs were placed there with elaborate surgery or are actually encoded in the creatures\u2019 DNA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, once each episode, this magical windmill spins, the air is filled with sparks like you see in your peripheral vision when you hyperventilate, and a little show appears on the one of the Teletubby\u2019s TVs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (This does not appear to cause the creature pain or distress. But, considering that even the lowly cell phone can cause brain tumors, those belly TVs can\u2019t be doing any good.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The belly show always depicts several live human children, doing something cute. They learn to count to three, or put rocks in a circle, or staple leaves to trees. And then the kids all wave at the camera and say \u201cBye bye!\u201d and the show ends and, and this is the truly diabolical thing about this show, the Teletubbies say \u201cAgain! Again!\u201d and the exact same film plays again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cordelia HATES the films of the kids. The comparatively dull appearance and antics of the actual children bores her little 10 month old brain silly. And this is where the education starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the kids came on, Cordelia would always crawl off and do her own thing. Flip through books, play with toys, whatever. Then, when she hears the kids say \u201cBye bye!\u201d, she\u2019ll crawl back to the TV and start watching again. When the same kids come on again, Cordelia crawls off and plays until they say \u201cBye\u201d again and then returns to her show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It probably doesn\u2019t sound like a lot to you, but such tiny victories and advances are the thing that make a parent\u2019s life worthwhile. I\u2019m not as proud as I\u2019ll be when Cordelia figures out how to use a Fast Forward button, but I\u2019m quite pleased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One Other Way Babies Are Dopey<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Cordelia hasn\u2019t figured out that she can position her body to get a better view of the TV. She doesn\u2019t realize it isn\u2019t necessary to sit way off to the side and crane her neck in such an extreme way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Poor, dopey baby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our ten month old daughter Cordelia continues to develop at great speed. Babies are great for that. Every day, her desperate quest for mobility moves visibly closer to completion. 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