Moving On Up

Having a child, we were convinced our little condo was more than enough space for the three of us.  After all, it worked well for just the two of us, so adding a third, especially a tiny little person, would be easy-peasy.  Alas, what we didn't realize was that the child is only the tip of a plastic, battery powered, space hogging iceberg.  If you are unfamiliar with what I am talking about here's a three step process to understand. 


Step 1) Go to the house of someone who has a 6-12 month old.  Hopefully they're family or a friend or at least an acquaintance, but if you have to break into some family's home, well, sometimes we have to make a sacrifice for the sake of education.  


Step 2) Close your eyes and take a step.


Step 3) Open your eyes.  That thing you stepped on, that hurt like hell and caused you to stumble into that other thing, which made you totally lose your balance and go crashing into a pile of other crap.  Yeah, that's the plastic shit I'm referring to.


Diapers, diaper genies, changing pads, onesies, , bouncy chairs, swings, slings, cribs, exersaucers, playpens, books, toys, strollers, pack n' plays, etc. etc. etc.  They all infiltrate your life and fill up all the available space in your home, displacing the things you used to have, like floor space and furniture with hard edges.  


But possibly the most annoying thing of the whole process, more than the cost, more than the space crunch, even more than the fact your child will only enjoy any individual item for maybe 2 weeks, is that there is now a region of your brain that is dedicated to remembering and understanding words like "onesie," "exersaucer" and "pack n' play."  Yeah, that's a part of my brain I'm never getting back.  I'd try to kill the brain cells with alcohol, but the only clean glasses we have are sippy cups.  

Wanted: One Babysitter

So, we lost our babysitter.  No, we didn't misplace her at the mall or leave her at the park, but we do find ourselves without a viable childcare alternative to, well, us.  I know, horrors!  


So we consulted that infinite database of all parenting knowledge.  Yep, we googled "babysitters" and came back with some creepy site.  Undaunted, we tried searching for "real babysitters" and did no better.  Same for "experienced babysitters", "strict babysitters" and "coed slutty babysitters".  Fine, so the last search was for my own benefit.  Anyway, finally we searched for "babysitters, really, babysitters, you know, to watch a baby, our baby, not some weird and creepy babysitter pornography appealing to stunted and deranged perverts.  Seriously." and found some honest to goodness babysitters in our town.  Not to say some weren't every bit as disturbing as the pornography.  Let's meet the candidates, shall we?


Our first applicant is Jazmyn.  Now, let's not be hasty in judgement here.  Sure, her name and chosen spelling might, possibly, somewhat hint that perhaps, maybe, she could have at some time danced with, you know, no clothes on.  But hey, we're enlightened and open minded parents, if she is comfortable with her body and secure in her choices who are we to hold it against her?  No, what sunk Jazmyn was her assertion that she doesn't believe in letting children watch "telivision".  Really?  I mean, I guess that's fair, when I think about it I find that I also don't believe in children watching telivision, or even tilevision, tellevision or tellyvisheon for that matter.  I'll even go so far to make the blanket statement that I am against children watching anything that doesn't exist.  


Well, Jazmyn's out (sorry Jazzy, we barely knew ye), but let's see who's next!


Ah, Robin, a bit older, a bit more experienced, a bit, well, judging from her photo, blurry and pixelated.  But that's alright, the technologically challenged can be great caregivers, just look at Mary Poppins.  Sure, she could fly using an umbrella but did you ever see her using an ipod or GPS?  I rest my case.  Anyway, so Robin has been nannying and babysitting for many years and prior to that, let's see, oh, she went to a prestigious art college, that's nice.  And let's see, oh, she majored in... seriously...really... photography?  Sorry Robin, if you're that bad at your chosen area of study I hesitate to hire you in something outside your "area of expertise."


And now we come to Sarah.  A sweet girl, fairly experienced but still young enough to keep up with a toddler into the wee hours as needed.  A student at the local university, she is studying abnormal psychology, which will come in handy when dealing with, well, me.  However, what really caught our attention is that, in addition to babysitting services, she also works as a dogsitter.  Now, many of you will judge us negatively for our priorities, but bear in mind we have a cute, well behaved, and relatively easy daughter.  We also have three ill behaved, bad tempered, and strange dogs.  Yeah, if she can handle them then Kiki will be a breeze.  


So we're trying out Sarah this weekend.  If all goes well we will have solved our childcare conundrum through the proper application of google.  If, conversely, things don't go well... let's just say if you see a cute part-Japanese toddler for sale on Craig's List could you just go ahead and buy her for us?  I'll thank and reimburse you later.  

A Rose By Any Other Name

Much like Eskimos and snow or prepubescent boys and breasts, my wife and I tend to generate lots of names for the things we love.  We've had many names for each other and our pets, but then our daughter came along and, well, we went all stupid.  Thus, our daughter, Akira Elise, has been alternately called:

Kiki

Keeks

Keekster

Doodle

Monster Mash

Pumpkin Pie
Squishy Face
Tiny Dinosaur
Baby Bear
Sy Snoodles
Peach Face
Squeakers

Pretty much anything except Akira.  Actually, everything but Akira.  I think we're mathematically more likely to call her Abraham Zebbediah Jackson than Akira.  But you've got to admit, Zebbediah is fun to say.  


Yeah, so she's never going to figure out what the heck her name is, but we figure if we give her enough nicknames than any noise she hears will sound like one of her names.  That way we can just yell anything and she'll respond, which will be helpful if I ever have a stroke.  I'm just trying to plan ahead here.  

Sell Sell Baby

Well, it had been almost 14 days, so it was time for another trip to our local baby supply depot.  This time, being wild and crazy parents, we chose to hit "Buy Buy Baby" instead of our old reliable "Babies R Us" because, what the hell, maybe they have some even dumber products.  And we were not disappointed.    

First off, what the hell were they thinking with that name?  Buy Buy Baby?  Am I the only one who imagined a black market baby exchange?  Well, needless to say, I was disappointed from the start, since I was really curious what Kiki would trade at.  But instead of boards showing the exchange rates for the various ages, ethnicities, and cuteness on offer, I was greeted with stacks of baby crap literally to the ceiling.  I mean, it's great that you carry crap, but do you need so much of it?  How many of these are you really going to sell?

I mean, just what the fuck is that?  Do you need 300 in the stores?  Is there going to be a run on... what IS that?  Is it just me or does it seem strangely sexual, in a creepy furry gross kind of way?  As far as I can tell from their website, it appears someone had a lot of surplus beanie babies, so they just glued a pacifier on them and sold the whole lot to BBB.  BBB means "Buy Buy Baby" if you didn't get that.  I got fed up with typing something as inane as Buy Buy Baby over and over, so instead I shortened it and then proceeded to type it twice in explanation necessitated by trying to avoid typing it once.  Stupid store.  Anyway, I guess it does fill a need in the marketplace.  You know, if you're child loves pacifiers and you just wish there was a way to make it appear they were making sweet mouth love to a stuffed animal, well, consider your wishes (however sick and perverted) granted.  

Delving deeper into the store, I was delighted to find my favorite bathing device, the bucket:

Oh, sorry, POD.  It's apparently inspired and designed by "european"?  What?  That doesn't even make sense.  How can the same person design and inspire something?  They were self-inspired?  And grammatically it is weak at best.  European Inspired?  How so?  Because they use buckets?  So therefore, it was equally inspired by janitors, right?  But my favorite is the tagline: The Most Natural Way to Bathe Baby.  Really?  A bucket is more natural than, say, a river?  Or a stream?  Or a puddle?  Or letting a dog lick her clean?  Or a powerwasher? Alright, maybe not the last few, but in what way is a bucket any more natural than a bathtub?  To be fair, maybe the pod is made of something more natural, like wood or smashed up ants, that makes it more natural. 

But lest you think we are cruel and heartless parents, parading our daughter through the store, mocking everything and buying nothing for her, we did get something for lil' Kiki, though not from BBB...

Now, before you get all upset, we only let her drink three and she was not allowed to drive afterwards.  

Childproofed!

Well, it finally happened, my darling daughter is walking. Not a ton, just a few steps here and there, but now the real fun begins.  See, previously she would sometimes pull herself up and could slowly get around with a modified army crawl type of locomotion. But now, well, she stands up on everything more solid than a stiff breeze, pulls on and chews everything within 36" of the ground, and crawls at approximately mach 2 (my radar gun is only so accurate).  And as the old adage goes, what comes up must come down... often times on it's face, usually at speed, and always accompanied by crying and yelling.  Sometimes she even breaks out the dreaded "Silent Scream" wherein she freezes for about 5 seconds, her face bright red, her eyes screwed shut, her mouth wide open in a huge yell... but no sound comes out.  Well, eventually it does, and that's kind of her "okay, this time it really hurt" signal, but that first silent frozen moment is just horrible... and kind of cute too.

But she's not some one trick pony, she's got lots of skills other than falling down.  She has also learned to feed herself, and likes to practice whenever she can with anything at hand... like lint, dirt, and hair.  Delicious.  She also seems obsessed with crawling fully into the fireplace.  I mean, I guess it does look warm, being all, you know, on fire.  


Well, faced with a clumsy, pica afflicted, self-immolation obsessed toddler, we turned to that bastion of all parenting knowledge... well, er, parenting goods at least. Here's a hint, it starts with a B and ends with an abies Я Us.  On our latest visit we hit the "Safety" aisle hard.  Now, we started off with the easy stuff. You know, the gate that only requires 4 hours and a TIG welder to install, so darling Kiki doesn't throw herself down the stairs, even though we all remember how fun that is. We also bought a jumbo bag of outlet covers, so she doesn't electrocute herself (I know, our daughter isn't going to have any fun). Finally, we topped the cart off with a few devices that prevent anyone without an advanced engineering degree from opening a cabinet, though we did not elect for the PRO models, since, though cute and wonderful, Kiki is not yet a professional.

Having bought only three items from the aisles of safety devices on offer we felt like negligent, careless parents.  But really, I just couldn't bring myself to spend any more on safety items.  I don't think we need to keep Kiki out of the dryer.  Frankly, if she really wants to do the laundry I think we'll be okay with it.    We also didn't buy a toilet lock, since we'll be overwhelmingly thrilled when our daughter decides to start using the toilet, and this would just seem to discourage her.  Besides, the toilet is one thing I really, really don't want to be locked out of.  Ever.  

We also passed on the vast array of corner and edge guards, because, according to the packaging, we are monsters and hate our child.  But, in our defense we did get rid of the most obvious issues in the house (glass coffee table, bed of spikes, tiger).  Other than that, well, I think we just accept that Kiki is going to run into things, probably at speed, and in doing so she will learn that things can be hard... and sharp... and made of tigers.  And eventually everyone needs to learn that, right?

My Daughter, the Cannibal

On the day after Christmas a.k.a. Boxing Day, a.k.a. my birthday (happy birthday to me!) Kiki decided to unveil a thrilling new skill.  Well, not thrilling in the "hooray, look at what my daughter can do!" way, more of the "holy shit, what is my daughter doing!" kind of way.  


You see, Keeks has a habit of chewing on her index fingers.  Seemed harmless enough, we figured at some point it would either hurt and she'd stop or she would outgrow it.  But last Sunday she managed, with her two tiny and surprisingly sharp front teeth, to cut her finger open.  So we find her waking up from her nap with blood on her hand.  Awesome!  Our 11 month old is apparently a cutter.  In retrospect, maybe we should have seen it coming, you know, with the goth clothing, the crap poetry, the constant Cure playing in her nursery, but despite all the warning signs it was still surprising.  


We even had to take our first unscheduled trip to the pediatrician due to her bloodlust, where we were informed that she is apparently a werewolf and this is the first step in her transformation.  Wait, no, my wife is informing me that I am mistaken, she did not tell us that, she just gave us antibiotics and advised us to keep Kiki from chewing on her fingers (REALLY?).  We were also given a steroid cream to help little Kiki grow into a big and unnaturally strong ravenous flesh eating monster.  Oh, wait, no, once again I am apparently wrong, it was just to help her poor finger heal. 


But the most amazing thing was it didn't stop her chewing on her finger.  Nope, my little cannibal wouldn't be deterred.  Even putting band-aids on her finger didn't stop her.  We have had to resort to mittening her hands with socks.  But the worst part of it (besides the nightmarish visions of my daughter eating her own hands off, I know I shouldn't have watched Titus right before bed) is that the hand she cut, the hand that is now mittened (socked?) all day and night is her left hand.  Hmmm, maybe this is all just an elaborate, deceitful, and diabolical plot by my wife to convert our daughter into a righty.  Damn!  But, I have to say, she still looks pretty cute even with no hands.

Hullo daddy

My wife and I put our heads together, thought long and hard on it, tossed through many a sleepless night, and have finally come to this conclusion vis-a-vie our daughter: We are going to raise her British.


Yep, she'll grow up bundled in stripy jumpers, pushed in her pram, have to wear nappies until she learns to use the loo, we'll take the caravan on holiday, discuss the 'appenings of the day, guvn'r, whilst sipping our Earl Grey and nibbling on crumpets.  Trouble is, as you may have discerned from the previous mess of a sentence, neither of us is British.  Nor do we even know anything about "britishness" though I think failing to take her to the dentist will help.  Most troublesome for our endeavor, we won't be moving to England.  Or even Wales for that matter.  But hopefully a combination of James Bond movies and BBC America will convince our child that she IS british.  Maybe we can instill some class and sophistication in our daughter in the middle of America.  Or at least the illusion of such.


Now I just need to find a set of crayolas with the color (whoops, colour!) grey. 

Christmas Time for Kiki

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting morbidly obese, and it's time to buy presents for Kiki for the first time.  Now, we've bought things for our daughter, you know, the exciting things like diapers and formula and even, sometimes when we're feeling crazy, a new pacifier.  Before you begin sending us donations for Kiki's well being (we accept cash and most major credit cards but no Discovery cards, we're not whores), let me clarify that we were lucky to inherit a vast assortment of clothes, toys, and baby paraphernalia from friends and family, so Kiki has not had to crawl around naked.  I'm not saying she hasn't done so, but she didn't have to.  It was her choice.  What can I say, she's a free spirit.


But this Christmas, her first Christmas, we've decided to go all out.  No, we're not getting her a combination bathtub and changing table.  Nope, not a whirlpool child bath either.  Not even a combination whirlpool bath and changing table (I don't think it exists, but just in case I'm putting a patent on it.  By the way, saying "I put a patent on it" in your blog will hold up in a court of law, right?).  No, this Christmas, her first Christmas, we're going to do something really special, we're going to get her three of her favorite things:


1) Shoes
What can I say, my little girl loves shoes.  Mainly hitting them on the ground, smacking them, and especially licking them, particularly the soles.  My wife is less than thrilled with this new hobby, since, apparently, shoes are dirty (I know, it's a weird Japanese thing).


2) A refrigerator
Not a full size one, that would be ridiculous.  Just a mini-fridge.  She thoroughly enjoys slapping the outside, looking inside, and, if unattended, attempting to climb inside our current refrigerator.  So, being the smart, thoughtful parents that we are, we figure we'll get her a little one of her own.  


3) Boxes
Yes, like all sub-four year-old humans, our child loves boxes, and why wouldn't she?  They're brown, boxy, and smell of cardboard.  All the things little girls love.  And, being creative, enterprising, and thrifty parents, we're saving the earth and our wallets by re-gifting the boxes her other gifts came in as separate gifts.  It's what Jesus would have done.  

Sinistration

For those of you who didn't take Latin: 
(yeah, way to take a "useful" language, who'll be laughing when the Romans take over the world economy?!?!  What's that?  A dead language you say?  Well don't that just bite it.) 


SINISTRATION
Pronunciation: (sin"u-strā'shun),
—n.
the quality or state of being left-handed
Synonyms: Left-handed, Awesome, Totally Awesome, Totally Super Awesome


Yes, left handedness.  A surprisingly prevalent talent in my family.  Of the 5 of us, 4 are lefties.  Oh, and the dog was also a lefty, so 5 out of 6, that's what, 233%, right?  Well, sinistration does not indicate a propensity for mathematics.  


Anyway, my wife, whom I love dearly, is not left-handed.  So she's somewhat defective, but I've learned to look beyond that.  But now, horror of horrors, my sweet, beautiful daughter seems to be exhibiting right-handed tendencies.  I mean, I guess I can still love her and care for her.  Somehow.  Maybe I only look at her in a mirror so she appears to be a lefty.  It's either that or tape her right arm down for the next three years.  


Hmmmmmmm.


Okay, fine, the mirror it is....


But taping her hand down is the only way to guarantee that my daughter is more creative, better spatially aware, and much more likely to die in an industrial accident...


Man, this parenting thing is hard.

How To Determine the Proper Parenting Style for You.

Well, you've mastered the diaper change, gotten feeding under control, and may, just maybe, have had a few nights of uninterrupted sleep.  Now comes the big decision, what type of parent are you going to be?  There are thousands of books, millions of websites, and billions of other parents who are just dying to tell you how to do it, and warn that any deviation from their method will result in a sociopathic child.  Well, I'm here to put all your fears to rest.  My simple, 5 question test will quickly and accurately tell you which approach to parenting will work for you and your child:


1) Your child is crying.  Do you:


A) Pick them up immediately, hold them, coddle them, and smother them in kisses and praise.  Continue until they tell you to stop or turn 18.


B) Ignore them.  They'll figure out eventually how to fix what's ailing them on their own, after all, you're never too young to learn how to reset a dislocated elbow.


C) I don't know that I can answer definitively with so little information, I mean, what are the circumstances?  Is she hurt?  Then I'm absolutely comforting her.  Is she just cranky or bored, then maybe I'll let her cry a little bit and see if she resolves it on her own.


2) It's bedtime. Do you:


A) Sleep with your child in the same bed, always there to comfort, breast feed, and smother in love.  Continue until the child tells you to stop or turns 18. 


B) Put child in crib.  Close door.  Ignore all crying, screaming, and whimpering until morning.  Alternately, get infant an apartment of their own, it's never too early to learn self-reliance.  


C) Well, I don't know again.  I mean, I guess sleeping on their own would be nice, and we will all probably sleep better, but if she isn't having it, I don't know that I'm totally against sleeping in the same room, at least for a little while.  


3) Time to go to the Pediatrician.  Do you:


A) Defer all immunizations until your child contracts the disease.  No one dies from tuberculosis anyway.


B) Demand that the pediatrician combines all the immunizations needed for the first ten years into one mega-shot.  For best results, make your child self-administer it.


C) I think I'll talk with the pediatrician and take their advice pretty seriously, since they went to, what, 15 years of medical school, and have since dedicated their lives to helping infants, and deal with these issues every single day.  


4) Your child is hungry.  Do you:


A) Breast feed.  Nothing but breast feeding.   Again, repeat until they ask you to stop or turn 18.


B) First off, if it is not a designated feeding time they will just have to wait until the next scheduled eating period.  We're not running a 24 hour diner here.  And breast feeding?  Ha, we'll give them something they can really use.  Like a steak.  Oh, and don't cook it, let them figure out how to turn on the stove.  


C) Feed them.  Something.  I mean, breast feeding is great, if it works for the mother and child, but at some point you've got to stop.  And then, I guess formula, if they still need it, or food of some sort.  


5) Your child is misbehaving.  Do you:


A) Hug them and calmly explain that their behavior is brilliant and wonderful.  Breast feed them.  If behavior is really bad (stealing, hitting, murder), maybe kindly ask them if they would enjoy possibly redirecting their energies in another direction, but only if they want to.    


B) Tell them no.  Firmly, clearly, and often.  If this fails, tell them they are a disappointment and send them to their room/apartment.  


C) Well, what are they doing?  Are they just being somewhat annoying, or are they acting in a seriously violent/destructive manner?  How could one response possibly correct for all misbehavior?  Should the courts just have one verdict for all crimes?





Please put down your #2 pencil and await results.


If you answered all A's:


Congratulations, you're what is known as an "attachment" style parent.  Your child will grow up nurtured, loved, and emotionally fulfilled.  They may die of tetanus, but then every rose does have it's thorn.


If you answered all B's:


Congratulations, you're what's known as a "babywise" style parent.  Your child will grow up independent, strong, and resilient.  They may become a psychopathic murderer, but as they say, you can't make an omelet without turning a few eggs into psychopathic murderers. 


If you had any mix of A and B or, god forbid, any C's:


You are obviously unfit to parent, attempting to apply logic and thought to a process that should be marked by blind adherence to a theory created by an author primarily motivated by profit and personal gain.  Your child is doomed.  You should just do everyone a favor and drop them off at the fire station now.  

Roommate

Alright, today I will ask you to use your imagination.  Yes, close your eyes and... wait, you can't read this with your eyes closed.  Okay, read the post, memorize it, then close your eyes and tell it back to yourself.  Hmmm, yeah, that does sound like a lot of work for what is, let's face it, a minor entertainment at best.  Okay, fine, just read it and pretend you're imagining what I describe, and hopefully we will achieve minor entertainment.

It's your first day of college.  You move in with your new roommate.  She seems quite pleasant, very smiley and generally a happy, easy going sort.  But then you go to sleep, and at first, all is well.  But then, after about 5 hours of sleep, she wakes up screaming, yelling, and crying.  Not knowing what to do, you get her a glass of milk and she quickly calms down and goes to sleep.  However, every 2-3 hours for the rest of the night, she repeats this bizarre ritual, awakening unhappy, bawling, and yelling, only placated by a drink, after which she quickly returns to sleep.  The next morning, frazzled, exhausted, and more than a bit disturbed, you quickly find the college's housing office and demand a reassignment, since your roommate is obviously unwell, slightly disturbed, and possibly psychotic.  

The End.

What was the point of my little tale?  Well, only this.  That roommate, yes, she's my daughter.  And I have submitted a complaint to the housing authority about her nighttime behavior.  And by housing authority, I mean my wife.  It took a while, but I finally received a response.  I was informed that I was a jackass, and was being reassigned to the couch.  

Why not just staple your baby to the mattress?

SIDS, the misunderstood, unpredictable, and tragic fear of every parent, and apparently a marketing bonanza to baby product manufacturers.  So far, the worst product I've come across is this:

Once again, like all crap baby products, it claims to be a "system."  Now, in my book, two pieces does not a system make.  But then, it does have a seal of approval from The National Parenting Center, although I really question the value of that since the first approved item I found on their website was Filemaker Pro, a computer organizational program... yeah, I'm confused myself.  First of all, how does that have anything to do with children?  Oh, your kids can use it to track and organize their baseball cards, but of course.  Okay then, second question, are there organizational computer programs that failed to get the TNPC seal of approval?  Did Excel pose a choking hazard?  Does quickbooks pose a risk of SIDS?  

But back to the Infant Sleep Safety System (hereafter known as IS3, or just balls).  Through careful inspection of the packaging, I was able to discern the secret of its SIDS prevention approach - it ties your baby on their back.  It appears to be a band that attaches around the mattress and a sleep bag that engages through the wondrous technology of velco (thanks George).  Yep, nothing a good ol' roll of duck tape couldn't accomplish.  But then that wouldn't be a system.  Okay, so a roll of duct tape and a onesie - presto!  The soon-to-be patented Baby Attachment Crib Helper Engagement System (B.I.T.C.H.E.S.)!  A quick review by the National Parenting Center and I'll be raking the money in... and saving lives, don't forget about saving lives.  

Parental Pressure

Oh, the joy of a parent dead set on their child becoming a professional athlete.  And wherever there's an obsession, there'll be a product to support it.  Thus:

Yes, the ubiquitous Nerf Basketball hoop.  The source of great joy to every boy, discovering he can dunk like the pros, only to be replaced by crushing reality when he ventures out of his bedroom and onto the blacktop to discover he is short, poorly coordinated, and has the vertical jumping ability of a small rock.  But I don't have a big problem with this, maybe largely because I enjoyed the nerf set as a child myself, but also because it claims you can "play" like the pros and yes, even today, if I played with this I would play like I was, well, maybe not Lebron James but at least James Jones.  

But right next to it on the shelves of Babies R Us was this... mess:

Because what do kids love more than playing?  That's right, practice!  And I think I saw Tiger warming up with this set before the Masters last year.  Or was it one of the other golfers?  You know, the white one.  Hmmm, pasty, doughy, kind of a douche?  Yeah, I dunno either.  

I just imagine Christmas morning, when your older brother opens the Nerf Basketball set and begins imagining himself as Lebron, dunking over all comers and winning the NBA championships and you open this disaster and look forward to imagining yourself as Ernie Els plugging away at the driving range.  Oh, be still my beating heart!

A crazy little person came to live at my house...

Oh Kiki, she is adorable, but my wife did rightly observe yesterday that, in becoming parents, we just brought home a really small person to live with us who doesn't communicate, does nothing to help in any way, and screams a lot.  Awesome, right?  I think Planned Parenthood should adopt that slogan:

"Want a small crazy screaming person to move in with you?  Screw your brains out.  If not, maybe visit us.  Planned Parenthood, preventing insane visitors for over 23 years."

Yes, I know, Madison Avenue beckons.

Graphic Design by Infants

Ah, Babies R Us, the repository (depository?) of all that you do and don't need to raise a child.  But the worst thing for me is not the stupid products (and there are soooo many), it's the terrible, and I mean insanely terrible product packaging.  Why did they decide to photoshop this baby's head on another body?  If you answered because no baby would ever look that happy while wrapped inside a velcro bag, you sir are correct.  The only thing you hope for when taping your child into a sack is that they stop crying/screaming/speaking in tongues and sleep for at least 3.2 minutes.  If they look this happy it would just be disturbing.  I mean, really, this child looks like they enjoy being restrained a little too much.  They do say it's never too early to begin teaching, but usually a love of bondage is (hopefully) rather far down the list.  

If that's not fitting with your parenting goals, then just slightly farther down the aisle you can find this, er, thing. Which, according to the information available on the label, will not only prevent your infant from dying from SIDS, but will also enable her to fly through outer space.  Personally, given this choice between bondage and space flight, I know which one I'm choosing for my little girl.  I'm assuming the bag confers some sort of protection for space travel.  Although it doesn't say anything about protecting children from explosive depressurization, I'm assuming that's inferred by the "protects from SIDS" statement, right?  Now I just need to figure out how to get her into low earth orbit.  Hmm, maybe the next aisle over.  

Read my book and your baby will be happy, healthy, sleep through the night, learn to walk, talk and perform advanced calculus by 2 months of age!

Ah, the baby books. What a pile of crap. Here's the thing, no one will buy books titled "Chances are, your baby is average (or damn close to it)", "Your baby is probably okay" or "It's a baby!: Relax and just love it already". So instead the shelves are filled with titles like "How to make your baby sleep through the night" (chapter 4: your new best friend benedryl) and "Baby genius: How YOUR baby can have a 200 IQ" (step 1: choose a freakishly smart partner. Also, be freakishly smart yourself. DO IT!). All the books are filled with tons of information on what NOT to do. Here's a hint, if it's something every parent does, then, yeah, it'll be listed. You hold your baby!!! Wrong, wrong, wrong, now they'll never go to Harvard. You do/don't breastfeed!?!?! Kiss Stanford goodbye as well. You use plastic diapers instead of our patented diapering system (why is it always a system?)!?!?!? Well, maybe your child will earn their GED. Assuming they succeed in the drug rehab program. In prison.

I set out to write a baby book of my own, working title "Stop reading fucking books and just love your child" but soon realized my chances of resounding commercial success may be limited. I'm thinking of changing the title to "STOP RIGHT NOW: 1,432 things you are doing RIGHT THIS MOMENT that will ruin your child's hopes for happiness". Sadly, it will probably be a runaway bestseller.

Buy the new Thingamajic 3.0 or your child will hate you & grow up ugly, stupid & whorish!

Ah, baby paraphernalia. What a wasteland of cheap plastic and parental guilt. Think about it, for every first child there are two brand new, clueless parents. They have no idea what they need. Diapers? Surely. Onesies? But of course. 3.8 gH baby video monitor? Ugh... Dual action breastpump with Hydraclean technology and Natur-suck mechanism? Wha? Yeah, just go into a Babies R Us, you'll see legions of clueless parents wandering the aisles with a glazed expression, trying to differentiate between those products that are a waste of money from those that will save their child from a life of crime and put them on the path to happiness, a college education, and their own 2.2 children. It's amazing the number of products that are pure crap. Changing pad cover? Oh good, so I have something else I have to wash every time my child poops/pees while being changed, which only occurs, oh, every 13 minutes? Awesome, I'll take 2! Baby shoes? Yes, my infant, who won't be walking for another year, definitely needs proper arch support. Just Do It! It's not until you have the baby that you realize you should have passed on the 10 pack of infant socks, since she kicks them off instantly, and purchased the Johnny Cash complete box set instead, since The Man in Black has the same effect on your week old daughter as valium.