Entries Tagged 'being a parent' ↓

Last night, Allison and I finally sat down to wrap the presents we got for Lauren, Jesse and Max. I’m thinking she was a little bit punchy from a combination of being up late, a few extra Christmas cookies, plus the fact that I finally gave her carte blanche to work the tape dispenser. Either way, at one point she broke into a spontaneous rendition of Wham’s “Last Christmas.”

“How do you even know that song?” I asked, fairly positive that it didn’t exist in our iTunes Christmas shuffle.

“They play it on the bus,” she said before launching into another chorus.

Last Christmas… I gave you my heart.
The very next day… you gave it away.
Next year… I’m gonna give it to somebody special.

At which point she stopped singing, looked at me and said, “I know who that is.”

Assuming she meant she knew who sang the song I asked, “Oh yeah, who?”

“God and Jesus.”

That stopped me for a second. George Michael has been called a lot of things, but I imagine Lord and Creator of the universe is not one of them.

“God and Jesus sing this?” I asked.

“No, that’s who she’s going to give her heart to,” Allison clarified. (Apparently they play the Taylor Swift version on the bus) “Because God and Jesus are really special.”

That stopped me a second longer.

Applying what she understood about life, love and the world to this cheesy Christmas song, Allison knew that no matter how fickle other people could be with their affections, God and Jesus would never take her love for granted.

You all know the place I’ve recently come to regarding religion, but how can you argue with a faith like that? In churches all over America, Christians talk about having a childlike faith in God. But very few of them ever come to the place where Allison already is, where the only thing that matters is that God loves you and you love Him… no questions, no qualifying conditions, and no eternity of torture if you mess something up.

I was rendered speechless for the barest of instants before saying through a slightly tighter throat, “You’re right Allison. They are special. I think that is who she gave her heart to.”

No matter what your faith this Christmas, whether your reason for the season is Jesus, family or tradition, I hope you all experience this simple joy of loving and being loved. Whether it’s a spouse, a child, a close friend or an invisible man in the sky, I hope you all have somebody special to give your heart to, somebody who will keep it close to their own and never give it away.

Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth.

Allison and I have been reading “The Tale of Despereaux” before bed for the last few nights. First off, it’s an amazing book so far. I find I’M getting to the ends of chapters and saying to Allison, “You wanna read just one more?”

But the name of the human Princess in this book’s name is Pea. Which, when you’re reading visually, is a very cute name. Princess Pea. You can almost picture her, a tiny little girl, dressed in green, maybe sitting on a royal chair that looks like a pod. But when you’re reading it out loud to a kid who can’t really follow along with the words, she’s just hearing it phonetically, so she can’t keep a straight face every time an exchange happens like this:

“Her name,” said Despereaux, “is Pee.”
“What?”
“The person who loves me. Her name is Pee.”
“Nevermind her name. Did you allow her to touch you?”
“Yes sir,” said Despereaux, “I let Pee touch me. It felt good.”

Ask anyone with a four- to ten-year-old and they’ll tell you: Knock-Knock jokes are the bane of a parent’s existence.  I’ll take the three-year-old “why why why” phase any day over the Knock-Knock phase.

It’s not just that Knock-Knock jokes are inherently unfunny.  But because the setup is so dang simple, kids feel like it gives them free license to write their own material.  Which is basically the equivalent of somebody reading Harry Potter and thinking, “Hey, I like to read.  I could be a novelist.”  Or my personal favorite, a woman who told my wife that she could be a midwife because she watches A Baby Story every day.  So Allison will frequently come out with such gems as:

Knock-Knock.
Who’s there?
DVD.
DVD who?
DVD like the movies!

Knock-Knock
Who’s there?
The couch.
The couch who?
The couch that you sit on to watch TV!  Ha ha ha ha!

As a parent this really is a no win situation.  By laughing I encourage her to keep making lame attempts at humor.  By not laughing, I of course destroy every shred of her self-esteem and scar her for life, right?

On the other hand, the fact that they find such disproportionate levels of humor in something so insanely stupid can, in fact, make a parent’s job easier.  For the last two years I have been able to make both my kids laugh without fail using this very simple formula:

Q: What did (x) say to (y)?
A: You’re so silly because you’re a (y) and I’m an (x)!

Mind you, the punchline is always delivered in a frantic almost stuttering manner and punctuated with a heartfelt “Ba-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!”  But the effect is always the same: both my kids laughing hysterically at what essentially amounts to restating a question with the question itself.  Hopefully I’m not raising them to be TV pundits.

Q: What did Barack Obama say to the deficit?
A: Y-y-y-you’re so silly because because because you’re the deficit and and and and and and and I’m Barack Obama! Ba-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Roll your eyes all you want, but this little technique has come in quite handy on many a JC Penney portrait days after said children have been cooped up inside a car for an hour and then forced to sit in a chair and smile during what should be their nap time.

But as much as I pretend-complain here, the fact is I really do bring it on myself.  I recently introduced the Chicken Joke and its one truly funny manifestation to Allison:

Q: Why did the frog cross the road?
A: Because it was stapled to the chicken.

Now she simply substitutes any animal or inanimate object for “frog” and tells it like it’s a brand new and utterly freakin hi-larious joke.  And okay, the way she cracks up every single time is kind of adorable as hell.

We’re T-minus any day now for kid number three (boy number two), so I figure it’s about time to get this dormant blog fired up again with all those random musings about childhood, parenthood and randomhood that all three of you faithful readers have come to expect.  So without further ado:

RANDOM PARENTAL MUSINGS AS OF LATE:

Bibbity bobbity BOOM

I was watching Star Wars with Allison the other day.  Upon watching the Death Star obliterate Alderaan, she turns to me and says: “Where is the Princess going to live now?  I guess she’ll just have to marry someone with a house.”  I, of course, blame Disney.

Jesse is two and a half and has taken to playing with his penis pretty much non-stop.  I don’t want to necessarily scold him and lay the foundation for weird sexual hang-ups later in life (that’s what walking in on mommy and daddy mid-coitus is for).  On the other hand, with the way he yanks on that thing, and the fact that I can’t personally attest to the tactile strength and elasticity of foreskin, I don’t want him to, ya know, break anything… which, I imagine would affect his future sex life even more.  That’s why the phrase, “Only in your crib,” is uttered an estimated three hundred times per day in our house.  Because the fact is, he’s probably fine.  I just don’t want to see it.  This is why this standup bit is the funniest damn thing I’ve seen in months.  And as a side-but-related-note… even though I don’t doubt our decision not to circumcise, I just have to say: foreskins are freakin’ WEIRD.

Allison and I have been reading chapter books before bed.  We recently started “Ramona the Pest” which I thought would be great since Ramona, like Allison, is starting kindergarten.  Yeah, then on her first day she gets into trouble like five times and has at least three kids making fun of her.  Allison was psyched about kindergarten, but then you have jerks like Beverly Cleary making her ask, “Why was Ramona sad on her first day of school?”

I have not pooped by myself in about four months, which is coincidentally about how long it’s been since Jesse learned how to open doors.  I don’t know why he insists on joining me while I drop a load, but I’ve lost the will to fight him anymore.  Now I simply have fun with it. Like sticking my foot out so that Jesse, running at full speed and expecting the door to open all the way, plows into it head first.

Whereas we had all our girl names picked out a good three months before we were even engaged, Lauren and I have really had to struggle to eke out a boy’s name, preferably at least a couple days before they’re born.  We’ve been settled on Max for several months now.  At least I thought we were until the other night when Lauren announces that she’s freaked out about what we’ll name him if he comes out with red hair.  “Max just always struck me as a dark haired name,” she says.  In case you didn’t already know, both our kids have red hair, I have red hair, Lauren’s sister and grandmother have red hair, my entire paternal side of the family has red hair.  Recessive genes be damned, if we don’t have a redhead, I’ll be pretty freakin surprised… after which I’ll apparently be one of those parents who, in fact, did not pick out their kid’s name ahead of time.

I’ve discovered that no matter how cranky Jesse gets, or how hopped up on adrenaline he becomes, I can pretty much diffuse the situation and make him laugh by hurling a pillow full speed at his head.

I find having Jehovah’s Witnesses come to the door actually provides a good opportunity for discussing world cultures with a five-year-old and explaining how “some people don’t believe the same things we do.”

In the last couple months Jesse has mustered up the strength to open the refrigerator door.  In the last week he has mustered up the strength to lift and move his step-stool in order to reach the microwave.  Absolutely nothing in our house is safe anymore.

I had my first “there’s no such thing as monsters” talk with Allison before bed the other night.  Hearing her say, “Thanks, Dad,” at the end and then throwing her arms around my neck was, perhaps, the highlight of my entire summer.

Santa gave Jesse a Matchbox car ramp for Christmas.  Few things let me bond with my rambunctious son more than staying up until eleven o’clock on a Friday night, racing these things down the ramp over and over again, and busting a gut every time they crash into each other.

It’s amazing how your kids will just randomly give you new and completely amazing reasons to love them.  And new and amazing examples what unique individuals they are.  The girl received the movie Dumbo for Christmas and has watched it several times since.  But when she asks to watch it, she doesn’t ask to watch Dumbo.  She says, “Can I watch Jumbo Junior.”  Because if you remember the movie, “Jumbo Junior” is what the elephant’s mom originally names him.  It’s only after everyone sees his giant ears that they start calling him “Dumbo.”  It’s meant as a derogatory nickname.  And yet even his best friend, Timothy Mouse calls him that.   That’s like making friends with that fat pie eating kid from Stand By Me and still referring to him as “Lard Ass.”   Okay so you made friends with him, but you’re still killing him a little every time you don’t call him by his real name.  Apparently this never struck anyone in the Dumbo audience as weird.

Well it struck the girl that way.  She understands that even an elephant has feelings and recognizes how blatantly wrong it was to keep referring to Dumbo as Dumbo.  So she has decided to do the right thing and call him by his real name.  And not only that, if one of us forgets and says, “the D word” she will actually correct us.  “Jumbo Junior, dad.”

I seriously love that kid.  She’s only four, but she gets it.  Sometimes I forget how much.

(from 2005)

Visual stimulation is a crucial learning tool for the developing mind.  You’d think the people at the book and toy companies would understand this concept and respond accordingly.  I always assumed that they put at least a modicum of thought into every illustration or visual representation aimed at babies and toddlers.

Then one day at Babies-R-Us I saw a plastic placemat with a drawing of two kid-sized hands on it, with the thumbs pointed out—not in.  This should have been the kind of illustration that begs a kid to place his own hands inside the shapes to see how they fit, except that no Homo Sapiens’ hands face that way when they’re flat on the table!  Whose turn on the crack pipe was it at the printing company the day they mass-produced these things?

We own bunch of little books that show a single picture and its corresponding word on each page: apple, cat, boots, etc.  It’s fun and easy for a baby like The Girl to appreciate since she’s really only looking at the pictures anyway.  Now, if I were the one making seven dollars an hour to pick out these pictures, knowing that the entire success of this book depended on what I chose, I think I would have been a little more discriminating than these people.

If I were seeking out a picture, say, for the page that says, “cookie”, I would look for the quintessential cookie.  And to me, to any rational person, that can only mean chocolate chip.  Instead, the Queer Eye Martha Stewart lemming over at the book company picked some frou-frou Fancy Lad cookie with jelly in the middle.  To me, it looks like a cherry pie with no crust, but the moniker on the page definitely says, “cookie.”

In the Things to Wear book they continue getting on my nerves when they show a picture of two ponytail holders that say “hair accessories.”  I’m sorry… accessories?  These books are for kids under the age of three.  Could we please stick to nouns with more tangible definitions?

But it’s the Animals book that really pushes me over the edge.  Because on the page that says “bird”, they show a picture, not of a robin or a sparrow, but of a scarlet macaw.  That’s right, a parrot!  Again, if I’m the picture guy, and my book is full of animals, I know that the parent reading this book is going to point to the picture, read its name and ask, “What does the birdy say?”

Well, what does a freakin’ birdy say?  “Tweet, tweet,” right?  But the bird in their picture doesn’t say that.  He says, “Polly wanna cracker.”  Now I have to explain, then clarify, then re-clarify, all the while trying to make clear the original point, which is to say that while certain ornithological creatures utter one sort of mating cry, this particular winged beast, while cute in the traditional sense is rendered essentially unviewable because I have torn his page from the book and thrown it across the room.

And people wonder why so many kids are on Ritalin.

The eyes on one of The Girl’s rolling toys are drawn just slanted enough so that it appears to be scowling as it chases her across the kitchen floor.  The guy who painted the face on Raggedy Ann made it look like she hasn’t slept in a month.  And the etching of a plate of spaghetti on a green plastic pan looks suspiciously like a cannabis leaf.

Seriously book and toy people, you’re not giving my daughter a lot of options here.  Between books with lazy plotlines, illustrations that she’s better off not looking at, and toys that are so riddled with safety codes that they’re too boring to play with, you’re putting the burden on me to make up games and talk to her myself.  You’re forcing me to form an actual bond with my daughter at a time in her life when that void is supposed to be filled by your toys, books and “developmental videos”.

Well rest assured, if my daughter grows up feeling merely “loved and nurtured” rather than entertained and prep-school-ready, you’ll be hearing from my lawyers.  I’d love to discuss this further, but I hear The Girl laughing in the next room and I have to go dance, clap hands and play “Daddy’s Nose.”

Maybe you should too.

…sorry, that advice was unsolicited.

(from 2005)

Growing up, I had such fond memories of The Little Engine that Could.  But I never noticed just how badly it was written until I started reading it to my own daughter.  First of all, in a thirty-five-page book, the title character isn’t even introduced until page twenty-six.  Bad start.  After that, his only conflict is this little hill.  There’s no struggle, no character arc, and no moment of crisis where it seems like the good little boys and girls on the other side of the mountain might not get their toys.  The train says, “I think I can” a couple times, and then he’s done.

Talk about your go-nowhere plot.  If it only takes him a page and a half to get over that mountain, maybe it wasn’t such a daunting obstacle to begin with.  Beyond that, I don’t feel as though I’ve truly gotten to know this Little Engine.  What were his hopes and dreams?  What demons from his past is he trying to overcome?  Above all, what did he learn from his experience on the mountain?  I guess we’ll never know.

The fact that this book and others like it are regarded as classics just shows you what kind of bleak landscape the pre-Seuss literary world was.  Personally, I blame the Baby Boomers.  (Though, I tend to blame them for most of the bad things in this world.) After thirty years of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, they started looking back on their trite, empty little lives and yearned for some shred of lost innocence to pass on to the next generation.  Then one day in the late seventies, some Madison Avenue yuppie leaned over the mirror on his desk and said, “<<ssssssnort >> Um… wasn’t there a cute story about some little blue train pulling toys?  <<sniff>>”  Next thing you knew, every one of them was trying in vain to save their souls by reading this dreadful mockery of the written word to their Ritalin-filled kids.

Unfortunately, I’m discovering that, with few exceptions, today’s kid books aren’t much better.  Take, for instance, Five Little Ducks, in which a mother duck loses one of her children each day they go out.  Then at the end of the book, the little ducks just come back on their own.  Mother Duck doesn’t have to look for them.  She never seems to show any emotion over their disappearance.  She’s just a docile protagonist who gets saved in the end by an embarrassing use of the deus ex machina device.  The only reason I think this particular book got published in the first place was because, in some messed up way, it teaches kids about subtraction.  But jeez, must we invoke the fear of missing children to demonstrate basic math?

But they’re not all bad.  I can dig The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Even though the title character’s M.O. is somewhat dubious, at least he’s proactive about accomplishing his goal of eating as much as possible.  Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed is fun in a sing-songy way, and although I do take issue with a mama who continually fails to heed her doctor’s advice, the book does illustrate the concept of subtraction under less tragic circumstances than Five Little Ducks.

Not that I even require a book with a traditional story arc.  Our personal favorite is My Many Colored Days by Doctor Seuss, which uses brightly colored paintings and unconnected vignettes to simply give voice and validation to each of our daughter’s emotions.  If only they could all be like the Seuss, man.  Even now, looking at his work objectively without the beer goggles of early childhood, his books are still fun with fresh ideas that make you laugh and, more importantly, make you think.

I know…  They’re only kid’s stories.  And yes, right now The Girl is paying more attention to the pictures and sound of my voice than to the central theme and plot.  But I think we’ve lived under the lie the book publishers have sold us for long enough: the myth that “it doesn’t matter what you read to your kids as long as you’re reading.”

NO, I say.  This is America!  Since when did we allow ourselves to just blindly accept such low standards?  Unless a book is funny, rhymes or has particularly engaging illustrations, then I for one refuse to continue letting some burnt-out ex-hippie in a suit dictate what is good for my daughter just so he can alleviate the guilt over his own wasted life.

I hope you will join me.

(from 2005)

My daughter is almost nine months old.  It’s a great time around our house for several reasons.  The Girl is crawling and trying to talk and is an all around happy and content little kid.  But something else is happening as well.  Something wonderful and disgusting at the same time.  No I’m not talking about the introduction of solid foods and the new and interesting smells it adds to her diapers.  I’m referring to the fact that at some point between six months and a year after your first child is born, you suddenly realize that you are an expert… on everything.

It’s wonderful because now you know exactly what your child needs and when they need it, and it makes the whole parenting thing seem like less of a chore.  What makes it disgusting is the fact that every other parent on earth has realized the exact same thing.  And out of the goodness of their hearts, they want nothing more than to tell you exactly how you’re doing it wrong.

Everything from the toys you’re buying, to the stroller you’re using, to the number of times per day you’re feeding them.  Of course, Lauren and I are following the Attachment Parenting philosophy, which runs pretty much counter to every modern train of thought in childrearing, so we’ve been especially privileged because everybody is dying to correct us.  We listen and nod and smile painfully as if to say, “I’m humoring you now, but shut up before I stuff this burp rag down your throat.”

We’ve recognized that the only good advice is the kind that’s actually solicited, so we’ve done our best not to proselytize our views unless asked—or provoked.  It’s tough because, like I said, we’re experts now too and we feel compelled to tell everybody just how badly they’re screwing their own kids up.  But we’d like to hang onto at least a few of our friends, so we’re only giving advice to two groups of people: the toy makers and the book publishers.

So over the next couple weeks, I will be dispensing my own brand of parental advice.  That is to say, I will be whining and moaning about everything that’s wrong with the people I’m paying to help entertain and educate my daughter.

Let’s start with toy safety shall we?  The Girl owns a xylophone whose sticks are tied to the base so they don’t get lost.  Unfortunately, the strings are so short that you can’t actually hit the bells at the proper angle to elicit a resonating “ding.”  Apparently this is a safety feature so that the child doesn’t wrap the string around her neck.  But to me this is like selling a car but removing the gas tank for fear of an explosion.  Kind of defeats the purpose of why somebody would buy the thing in the first place doesn’t it?

That’s right, you didn’t misread.  I am in fact saying that there is too much safety in my daughter’s toys.

And I know in this era of frivolous lawsuits, corporations are afraid of getting sued for every child that chokes, vomits or bursts into flames.  That’s why I think Congress needs to pass a “Survival of the Fittest” bill that would exempt the toy companies from any harm done to a kid with stupid parents.  Natural Selection: the parents who let their kids wrap too many ropes around their necks don’t get to see their genes replicated in the next generation.

So I’m not blaming the toy companies per se, although they are inconsistent.  For instance, Allison owns a toy telephone whose chord is too short to actually lift the handset to her ear.  She either has to lean her head all the way to the floor or lift the entire phone off the ground.  Okay fine, strangulation hazard, I get that.  But then the phone has a three-foot string so she can pull it across the floor.  Um… hello!  If you’re going to give my kid a makeshift noose anyway, why not put it where it can actually make the toy functional?

But I digress.  Toy safety is just my pet peeve.  My real beef, which I’ll get into next time, is with the publishers of children’s books.  So listen up over the next couple weeks Penguin Putnam and the rest of you.  I’ll be expecting some changes to be made by my daughter’s next birthday.  If not, I may just lengthen the chord on her phone and send it to your kids as a present.

(from 2004)

Somebody help me wrap my head around this.  Not only were Lauren and I allowed to keep the baby girl we gave birth to seven months ago, but the United States government also gave us permission, in fact encouraged us, to give her a name.  Then without any fanfare or bureaucratic red tape they sent us an official paper certifying that that name, the name we’d picked out, was the name she’d have for the rest of her life.  Nobody questioned us.  Nobody sent a letter saying we had utilized more than the permitted number of letters according to Pennsylvania Code THX: 11-38.  Nobody called to inform us that if we failed to fill out form FU-90 within thirty days, our daughter’s name would automatically be changed to Eunice.  We simply said, “This is the name we want,” and they said, “Fine.  Next!”

A year ago, we couldn’t even rent a car without filling out ten extra forms.  How is it we’ve been given absolute power to affect another person’s entire life through a single word and nobody even asked if we wanted the extended warranty?  We could have yelled out Gertrude or Agatha or Princess Blinkybelle for that matter.  And the president of the Bureau of Baby Names wouldn’t have even called a neighboring precinct for verification before slamming down his official government stamp and sealing our daughter’s fate forever.  Does that sound like the Big Brother we all grew up with?

For two years before we even started trying to get pregnant, Lauren and I spent hours upon hours throwing names back and forth.  We had traditional names like Luke and Audrey, trendy names like Madison and Parker, Biblical names like Noah and Isaac and even a few wild cards like Tuesday and Princess Blinkybelle.  Just kidding.  I never liked the name Audrey.  I guess it never occurred to us that we would eventually have to pick one of those names and stick with it.  I mean, when I was a kid and our dog Mitzi wandered off to visit the old man down the street, he always called her Champ.  Years later I named my cat Katie for three months until I found out she was actually a boy, at which point I changed it to Bailey.  That was the beauty of pet names.  They were only as permanent as the situation dictated.

So when we said The Girl’s name to the midwife, I half-expected her to take the same approach my mom did when I wanted to name my dog Skeletor: “Okay, well you just think about that for awhile and get back to me.”  Instead, she wrote it down on her form and six weeks later we had a notarized certificate with The Girl’s name on it.  There was no opportunity to go back and say, “You know what, maybe we should call her Ruth instead.”

But seven months later, with the exception of my in-laws who seem determined to drop unwanted nicknames on her (which is another story for another time), everybody else on earth still calls my daughter by the name Lauren and I picked out.  The one that (and I can’t stress this enough) the government let us pick out…  for-EVER!

Yes I know what you’re going to say.  The Bureau of Name Changes is always at our disposal, and if I’m really that determined to change The Girl’s name to Princess Blinkybelle, they’ll go to the trouble of alerting Family Crisis Intervention for me.

Fortunately for everyone, The Girl has grown into her name.  We look at her and just say, “Of course.”  It gives us confidence as we look forward to our future children, though I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.  I won’t tell you what they are, but each successive name we’ve picked out gets progressively more and more… unique.  I can’t help but wonder if Lauren and I are abusing the absolute power the government has given us.  The rational side of me thinks we should have a system of checks and balances for new parents.  Lauren and I at least had a modicum of discipline, but I know somewhere out there, some future dad is getting an idea from this article and just might name one of his kids (…gasp…) Audrey!

(from 2004)

In the nine months leading up to The Girl’s birth, I was scared to death that we’d have an ugly baby.  Oh don’t act so appalled. You prayed the same prayer I did for good looking kids.  I can’t help it if God tuned you out.  Fortunately my prayers were answered.  Now if I could only figure out the proper etiquette for responding to people who gush over this beautiful kid of mine.  I’m six months into this whole fatherhood thing and I haven’t been able to figure it out.  At the grocery store, in the mall, at the strip club, total strangers are constantly compelled to smile at my daughter, wave at her and tell me just how beautiful she is.  I find myself at least once a day agonizing over how to respond to these well-meaning cheek-pinchers when they squeal, “Oh, look at the baaay-beeeee!”

So far I’ve been dealing with them the same way I’ve always dealt with semi-pretty girls flirting with me: laugh nervously, avoid eye-contact, say something lame.

OLD LADY: “Look at that adorable face!”

ME: “Ha, yeah…”

MIDDLE-AGED MOM: “What a beautiful smile!”

ME: “Ha, yeah…”

REALLY HOT AEROBICS INSTRUCTOR: “I see your daddy’s been working out.”

ME: “Ha, ye–no, well I mean I was, in fact I… Ha, yeah…”

I guess it’s no surprise.  I’ve never been good at accepting compliments even for myself.  I always feel the need to explain them away.

AFTER A COMPLIMENT ON A JOB WELL DONE: “Yeah well, just don’t stand directly underneath it.”

AFTER A COMPLIMENT ON MY APPEARANCE: “Yeah well, you don’t have to see me naked.”

Those work great and draw plenty of nice uncomfortable laughs.  But I imagine they would only encourage a call to Child Services from the stranger who’s just told me how bright-eyed and alert my daughter is.

And what about those people who start making ga-ga faces at my daughter while I’m standing right there?  Have you ever been singing along to the radio at a red light, only to realize that the guy in the next car has been staring at you?  I certainly don’t want to make anybody feel that stupid, especially when they’re making my daughter laugh.  So should I look away and pretend I don’t see them and risk looking like a snob?  The only recourse I’ve found is to keep my eyes locked on my daughter and say in that overly excited baby voice, “Hey Little Girl, who’s playing with you?!?  …No seriously, I can’t see.  Who is it?”

On the flight home after Thanksgiving a man in our row spent the entire flight smiling and making “ba-ba-ba” noises at The Girl.  I sat next to the guy for two hours and never once saw his face.

I just keep telling myself these people don’t know me.  Whatever I do, they’ll forget about it ten minutes later.  Of course I’m no better around friends and family, most of whom naturally get a kick out of holding babies.  I’m all for letting them get their fix on The Girl, but again, what exactly is the proper etiquette for pimping out my daughter?  I feel silly asking, “Do you want to hold her?”  Am I so vain as to think that somebody’s life must be incomplete because they haven’t had the privilege of cradling the fruit of my loins?  Then again, I don’t want to not offer and look like one of those anal-retentive parents who get the shakes every time their baby is out of their arms.

Once again, I opt for playing the baby as my poker chip.  If I sense that Darwinian urge from some relative with an unfinished will, I’ll turn to The Girl and ask, “You wanna go see Aunt Tilly?”  The recipient is of course overjoyed and rethinking her decision to get her tubes tied, and I have dodged yet another baby etiquette bullet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m eating this crap up with a tiny rubber spoon.  I consider every smile, wave and falsetto greeting just another notch on the old Natural Selection bedpost.  But I’m running out of creative ways to navigate these situations that Ms. Manners never covered in her column.  I’d write her a letter, but she probably wouldn’t be able to help anyway.  I mean have you seen her kids?