FEELING CRAZY YET?
[As much as I'd like to take credit for the baby in the above photo, that is NOT the King]
I’m starting to think no one knows anything when it comes to babies. Okay, fine, a mother will know her own baby, but trust me, there are times in the beginning where even that is questionable. Then there are the ‘experts’ who claim to know everything about everything. Bastards. They write books and tell you what you should do, what you shouldn’t do, and what of course you’re doing wrong to screw up your child and ensure that they will be the one on top of the college auditorium with a rifle. Thanks for that. And of course keep in mind that for every one of their books, there are 60 others telling you to do the complete opposite thing. Hence, I am now convinced that rearing children can and will lead to schizophrenia.
The problem is this, it’s a business; this entire baby racket thing is a multi-billion dollar business to sell you things that may work, won’t work, or will work for five minutes and then forget it, you’ve missed your window cause they’re not going to work anymore. Are you feeling crazy yet? What ends up happening of course is that you feel like a failure – a tired, un-showered failure – cause you don’t know how to interpret some expert's regime, which leads you to toss out their ethos and pick up another, (cha-ching) and of course spend more cash in doing so.
As of now, I feel like it’s the blind leading the blind theory at play. My friends – god love them – are all very helpful when it comes to giving advice in regards to the King. But they will readily admit that for them, such and such worked. For me, well, good luck, I might come up totally snake eyes. You see, I believe that by month two, a mother knows that it is a crap shoot; they know that what works on Monday – whether it be rocking your child to sleep, cooing him, standing on your freaking head wearing a blue caftan singing “Let It Be,” at top volume…well, none of that may work on Friday. So enjoy the peace and effectiveness while it lasts.
As I’ve said before babies, and the King has got this characteristic all sewn up, are ever changing. Sure they like routine. We all do. But they only like it until they’re good and ready to change it, and then to hell with your routine, revolution is happening in our baby kingdom and you just have to adapt and deal with it. My partner and I have never uttered the phrase, ‘maybe it’s…’ more in our lives. Every day we look at one another and say it tiredly and repeatedly like it’s a mantra staving off death. I believe it is a string of hope. It makes us somehow feel in control and if I say maybe enough times, I might just know what the King is doing and what ball he’s going to hurl at me next. Wow that curveball is a bitch.
No wonder babies start laughing and smiling right about now; I am sure they are highly entertained by our attempts and deductions that we know what is best. The other day when I said out loud to the King that just MAYBE, I had no clue what I was doing, I swear the kid winked at me.