Readily A Parent

It was only a few days after the birth that we went to see the doctor and so we all bundled up, drove in, and stood in the check-in line to be registered for our appointments. I got to the head of the line and was about to announce my name when I realized, for the first time, that I wasn't checking myself in. I was checking the baby in. Whoa. How weird is that?

Stumped, I just stared at the receptionist, trying to get my head around this new state of affairs. Finally I stumbled over some kind of sentence such as, "I am here to check my daughter in." The words "my daughter" did not fly prettily off of my tongue, but at least I'd gotten the words out. I smiled sheepily at the receptionist.

But she wasn't done. "What's her name?"

Uh oh. What was her name? To be fair, I just met the kid a few days ago. How come I was expected to remember what I named her? But I went through my list of possible names and finally settled on the one that seemed the most right.

"Stanley," I said definitively. Now it was the receptionist's turn to stare blankly at me.

"Your daughter's name is Stanley? Are you sure?" the woman said politely.

Clearly I wasn't sure of anything. Not the least of which was this ephemeral idea of being a "parent" of a "child", whatever the heck her name was.

Now, almost five months later, the words "my daughter" do not stick on the way out of my mouth, while the fetus formerly known as Stanley has solidified into her suddenly human brand name of Sydney with relative ease. But I still don't much feel like a "parent." After the initial shock, our daily routines have pretty much re-set themselves, albeit with a central hub which was not there before around which we navigate carefully. Still, there are signs of change, subtle though they are:

1) I can speak Baby.
While I by no means am fluent in the language of baby I do know some limited words and phrases which allow Sydney and I to communicate pretty well. For instance, WAAA means I'm Hungry, while WAAA means my diaper is wet. In contrast, WAAA means that Sydney is cold and needs a blanket while WAAA means that she is bored and wants to be picked up. And finally, WAAA means I'm really tired but I don't want to go to sleep. See how simple it all is? Now you can speak Baby too. Though heaven forbid you get WAAA and WAAA mixed up. Then you'll hear all about it when she says WAAA in a very angry voice informing you of how hard it is to get good help around here. Oui, mademoiselle, whatever you say, mademoiselle.

2) I have become wise to the dangers of the world.
Every news report which involves missing, abused, kidnapped or killed children immediately becomes wrapped around my mind like it was my child that was in the headlines, not the nameless faceless one with the outdated grainy photo. Then I call home on some pretense just to make sure everything is alright. "Honey, you've called ten times about the bank. I promise not to forget!!"


3) Children's toys have become endlessly fascinating.
Who woulda thunkit but those fish shaped rattles and those blocky stacking toys are major fun when seen through the eyes of a five month old. Actually, when you're five months old, everything is a toy, including the doctor's stethoscope which, by the way, is also edible. Even more interesting is that Mom and Dad also find these toys suddenly fascinating and sometime will bring them to their mouths to see if they taste good. Hey! The red one tastes like cherry!

4) There are a lot more kids in the world than I thought.
Even though of course my daughter is cuter and smarter than all of them combined, I find myself looking at two, three, four-year olds to determine what my future holds in store for me. I notice behaviors I don't want to see in my daughter and try to plan for squelching them gently before they blossom, and behaviors I might at the same time want to encourage, and outfits I definitely will not subject her to. Like most well-thought out plans, this one will most likely get trampled over on the way to whatever Sydney needs to get to, but it occupies my time. Which I have an endless supply of these days. Ha. Ha.

and finally

5) Sleeping in means not waking up until, oh, 5:30am.
The phrase "sleep through the night" is relative. I never before thought anything before 6am was a valid time, and something in the 8am or 9am time frame was a much more preferable wake up time, and a 10am wake up call was downright luxurious. Now, 5:30am is the standard by which we set our alarm clocks. If Sydney sleeps until 5:30am, we're all well rested and yet we can still get to work on time. If Sydney wakes up before that, well, at least she doesn't wake up every two hours like she used to, unless of course it was like last night and actually that is what she does. Sleep, schmeep.

The Sound of Music (Please Make it Stop!)

Some people claim that children learn better when their life's lessons are sung to them, and that Mozart makes a baby smarter. This theory has permeated through the toy industry with great gusto, of course, with the predictable result that everything you might buy for your infant takes three double A's, or two triple A's, or six D batteries to truly make for a baby-riffic experience.

We had sworn, before Sydney was born, that we would not fall for anything which required batteries. After all, parents have been mollifying their children for centuries without artificial help. But we quickly found out that that was because one parent was with said infant all the time, and that while this may be the ideal experience for our newborn we were not accustomed to having a living, breathing third brain super-glued to our bodies at all times. We've slowly let go of the no batteries mantra, and as a result, Sydney's musical repertoire has been gradually building.

Too bad you can't change the tune.

Or the instrument. Or the order of the &#$@^&^ songs.

A mechanical swing belts out snippets of artificial notes resembling a carnival ride. Frere Jacques and Oh Suzianna and Row Row Row Your Boat for as long as you can stand it. A musical mobile floats birds and bees and butterflies in the air and croons Papa's Gonna Buy You and also Night Sounds for that outdoor experience. A blue, fuzzy, beloved octopus plays Mozart and some other classical tunes, thankfully short. A lion, when his tail is pulled, plays a lovely little ditty. And a bouncy chair will vibrate (good, good, good, good vibrations..) and will run through a series of sedate tunes which will put Sydney into a nice, quiet, contemplative mood every time. While the music would soothe Sydney to sleep it would make us think of wood paneling and tons of flowers and black umbrellas for some unknown reason until just today we realized that it sounded exactly like funeral parlor music.

Our own musical tastes run somewhat less than clean, to the extent that we actually have video of Sydney "dancing" to the lyrics of Devil's Haircut by Beck. It's still music and fair game but it's definitely a far cry from Mozart's Requiem or Beethoven's 5th or whatever else is supposed to expand the mind of the young.

As for us, we too sing for Sydney, mostly the same thing over and over, and mostly having to do with a) not crying anymore, b) how fun the next activity is going to be c) no, we said the next activity was fun, and d) how did things get so bad?

We're not musically inclined, really. So maybe it's just as well that all her toys seem to be. Although the great maestros would hardly consider the noise that comes out of these toys music, I daresay. More like... reckless noise. Which plays over and over. And over. And over.