Ask the Bubbly: Babies Laughing at Paper

Today’s question comes from a father who never had the chance to rip paper for his son.

Pity.

Or is it?

Dear Lela,

What’s up with all the laughing baby videos lately? And why didn’t any of those parenting books tell me that I could get my kid to laugh just by ripping up paper? This could have saved me a lot of sleepless nights when my kids were babies. I sure wish I had known about this miracle baby-enchantment strategy then. I feel cheated.

Frustrated Father

Dear Frustrated,

Take heart, and enjoy the videos while you can. The baby-laughing-at-ripped paper phenomenon will be short-lived. The reason you never read of this supposed miracle baby charming technique is because it is not a time-tested method. Unlike tickling a baby’s belly or dancing him around to vintage Britney Spears, these seemingly innocent giggling baby antics are nothing but precursors to what is referred to in the trade as meltdown. (Not to be confused with blowout, which is a marked discrepancy between human elimination and diaper capacity.)

Videos of babies laughing at ripped paper last approximately one minute. You do not see the moments preceding or those following. Note that the baby paper film genre is dominated by male directors. At some point during the day of filming, this man receives a rejection letter of some sort, a past due utility notice, or mortgage statement with an unfavorable escrow account adjustment. Just prior to making the video, his gainfully employed partner says something to the effect of,

“Get your lazy ass off the couch and do something around here.”

At this point, the man chooses from among the many household chores what he believed to be the easiest task: childcare. And because he is Daddy, aka the Fun Parent, he passes the time with Junior by making him laugh. Specifically, he rips the offending rejection or bill. (My sources have no idea why this works or how it has caught on so quickly, but I suspect it has something to do with the influence otherwise unemployed daddy bloggers.)

Daddy rips; baby laughs. It works.

For about one minute.

Then Daddy bores of this tiresome routine, because let’s face it, watching babies laugh isn’t that satisfying, not like picking March Madness brackets or eating an entire piece of leftover pizza in two bites. So the funny man stops the show and the baby starts to cry. Translation of baby’s wails: “What do you think you’re doing? Get back here and rip me some paper, Fool!”

Here’s where Mom steps in. No one has actually seen one of these videos. No one wants to.

Enjoy the foolishness of others, but consider yourself lucky, not cheated. At least during your sleepless nights there was a chance, no matter how slim of sex. Not so for the paper rippers.

Got questions? I’ve got answers:

• Girl Scout Dilemma

Ask your own questions in the comments or drop me a line.

Image Credit: Creativesam, Flickr

The Legend of My Ten-Pound Baby

Despite the ever-increasing responsibilities, there are no promotions in motherhood. You’ll never get an annual review followed by a fat bonus and a healthy raise. There’s a once-a-year day of gratitude, but the rest of the time we take our props where we can. It is not enough that we (almost) singlehandedly grew an entire human being inside our bodies and then managed to keep the little sucker (literally) alive in the face of deadly car seats and crib bars. We value what we can quantify as credit for a job well done.

I earned a gold star for my daughter’s birth weight. Despite a carefully constructed birth plan, an ancient Korean midwife’s fetal turning technique, and my doula’s soothing-sounds-of-the-snow-owl CD, my second child, a precious flannel bundle, had to be pried out of me under anesthesia—with a big knife. She was born gray with an Apgar score of one, and nearly killed us both. Why? She was a ten-pound baby, that’s why. Ten.

Okay 9 pounds 14 1/2 ounces. I embellished, but when you have a baby that big you’re allowed to round up. An ounce and a half isn’t an exaggeration; it’s a shot of tequila. (Which may have taken the edge off the cheese-grater-on-nipple sensation of breastfeeding.) I’m just saying, it wasn’t a big fib. From Day One my daughter was a 10-pound baby. For the last decade all my kick-ass-ness as a mother has been implicit when I casually mentioned, “That one? Ten pounds.”

Okay, just under ten pounds. Who’s counting?

I would have perpetuated the legend indefinitely, but on her tenth birthday my daughter asked look at her baby book. This couldn’t go well. Surely she’d notice her book consisted of a few good pages, followed by a few more of random baby items, and then two-dozen blanks. I figured as long as we didn’t break out the meticulous record of Big Brother’s first year for a side-by-side comparison, she might never know that she was conceived primarily as a playmate for our favorite child. I shouldn’t have worried. All she wanted to see was her birth certificate. My husband and I beamed over her shoulder as she flipped through the handful of pages devoted to her first days. Then the trouble started. There on the first page of the sub-standard baby book was her birth announcement, the one I had created with my own breast milk-stained fingers.

“Do you see what I see?” I asked my husband.

“What?””

“Eight pounds fourteen ounces? What is that?”

“What?”

“She weighed ten pounds! Ten! Well, you know, nine fourteen.”

Like all good husbands faced with an unwinnable situation, he shrugged.

How could I have made such a mistake? As I paged through the official documentation, a ten-pound knot formed in my stomach. The hospital record of birth, her crib identification card, and in the doula’s notes all confirmed her actual birth weight: 8 pounds 14 1/2 ounces.

She wasn’t just under ten pounds at all. She was just under nine pounds. Nine. This fact would not reconcile with my myth. I was a five-foot-one She-Ra, a warrior among women, a ten-pound babymaker! Now what was I? Just over average? Big deal. And it wasn’t just about me. My daughter had bought into my heavy white lie too. The thought of her infant self as bigger than the rest had built up her self-image as a tough girl, maybe even helped her become the best defenseman on her ice hockey team. The facts presented in that stupid baby book shattered all that.

“You mean I wasn’t ten pounds?” She looked like I’d just wiped out the balance of her iTunes account.

“I don’t care what it says,” my husband told her. “You’ll always be a ten pounder to me.” He glanced in my direction. “And don’t worry, Babe. Your secret’s safe.”

The legend may live on, but I don’t feel right about keeping that gold star.

My Ten Pound Baby Is Not

My daughter turned ten last week. She wanted to see her birth certificate so we got out the baby book. There on the first page a blatant error stood out. Her birth announcement read 8 pounds 14 ounces. Shocked that I would make such a mistake I searched for other documentation. The hospital record of birth, her crib identification card, and in the doula’s notes all confirmed her actual birth weight: 8 pounds 14 1/2 ounces. Damn. My second baby, the one who had to be pried out of me under anesthesia, the one with the Apgar score of 1, the one who nearly killed us both was a TEN pound baby. Ten.

Okay, so maybe I exaggerated a tiny bit. But when you have a baby that weighs in a 9 pound 14 1/2 ounces, you are allowed to round up. It’s an ounce and a half for goodness sake. And that’s just what I did, from day one she was a 10 pound baby. I told everyone, have been telling everyone for the last decade that I birthed a ten pound baby. It indicates my kick-ass-ness as a mother and underscores her tomboyish toughness. But she wasn’t just under 10 pounds; she was just under 9 pounds. The fact would not reconcile with my myth.

“I don’t care what it says,” my husband told her. “You’ll always be a ten pounder to me.”

That’s our story and we’re sticking with it.

Contest: Occupy Your Baby, Or Else

When I was young and childless and really enjoyed grocery shopping, I recall once asking my husband why anyone would bring a small child into such a peaceful place as a grocery store. Ditto for a restaurant. He responded that sometimes they just had to. It didn’t make any sense until years later when I too had to cart unruly and unwilling children off to Safeway or my favorite sushi haunt. Sometimes I just had to.

I used bribery of the food kind. Once, when I really, really, really needed the special kind of torture that is TJ Maxx, my son went through an entire bag of Goldfish. One at a time. As well as that worked, now we have something better. It’s called an iPhone! And if you thought Scribble rocked, wait until you check out Occupy Baby.

Occupy Baby is an iPhone/iPod app that plays a continuous animation of a farm with animals that moo, crow and oink. That’s WAY less annoying to your flight mates than a whining toddler. To make it even more convenient, there’s another new product: iBends. This is a stand for your iPhone or  iPod Touch. And the beauty of this gadget is that it’s made from a rigid piece of plastic that easily bends into use, and then goes right back to flat for easy storage in your wallet, purse or pocket so you can always have a place to hold your iPhone when you need it. iBends are great for watching movies on the iPhone too. Or even setting up your phone on your nightstand so you can see the time without have to reach for it or creating an instant night light anywhere.

Cool, right? You totally want these don’t you? If you have an annoying baby, the answer had better be yes!

Good news! I have three sets of iBends and three free app codes for Occupy Baby to give away. To be entered to win, all you need to do is share this post on Twitter or Facebook, and leave a comment telling us about the time you most needed these handy new tools. I’ll choose the winners at random next week!

Thanks for playing, and I can’t wait to hear your stories!

    

If I Had Tweeted My Labor

OMG! Just started timing contractions. Totally on schedule. This is going to be soooo great. Can’t wait to start breathing exercises!

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Contractions are starting to hurt. Husband wants to go to the hospital but I’m calling the doula. Need to labor at home a while.

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Damn this hurts! Breathing not bringing the relief I thought it would. Cramps are WAY worse than in the pictures.

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Couldn’t wait for doula to show. Threw up en route to the hospital. Husband is totally freaking out.

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Trying to Tweet in the tub w/o *ing up my iPhone. Is it normal to sound like a hurt cow?

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The comfort of water is over-rated. The tub is now freezing but it hurts too bad to move. WTF? Who thought of this?

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Okay – way better now. Taking drugs. Something with ‘cain’ at the end took the edge off. Waiting for my epidural!!!!

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ROTFLMAO – Dr. Feelgood just asked if I was in the middle of a contraction! Ha! I’ll show him a contraction!

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Epidurals=NOT overrated!! Doula is helping me get into soothing positions, just tried to sneak me a granola bar.

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9 1/2? 9 1/2? WTF is 9 1/2? When is this *ing monster going to get the hell out of there? Seriously, suck this thing out NOW!

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Totally should have gotten that one final pedicure.

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Okay, fine. I give up. They’re shaving me now. We’re going to get this kid out one way or another. Okay – the other way…

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Does anyone speak anesthesiologist? What part of ‘Yes, I can feel that’ is so hard to understand?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

*

Something just popped. What was that? Gotta go, face mask is coming and they’re making me count. 10, 9, 8, 7, …..

Making Babies…. Oh the Glamour!

I had my last baby when I was thirty. And when I say last, I mean that’s it. I won’t be one of those women taking prenatal vitamins and Boniva at the same time. I don’t have the energy. I waited until the ripe old age of twenty-eight to have my first child, then followed up with a second only twenty-two months later. I had to work quickly because way back then we were afraid to get pregnant after thirty-five. A lot has changed in the last ten years. Pregnancy over forty has become accepted and, if you believe the celebrity photos, easy.

As I inch toward forty, the biological clock still ticks. Instead of have-a-baby-have-a-baby, it now says just-one-more-just-one-more. I fanaticize that if I had another baby, I’d do everything right this time. I would coordinate perfect outfits, put on makeup, and shower every day. I indulge this dream for about a minute before I remember the sleepless nights, continuous feeding, and far-flung emotions. Between post-partum, PMS, and peri-menopause I can’t imagine what older moms are going through. I’m pretty sure if you knocked on their doors at nine in the morning, they wouldn’t be red carpet ready.

Despite the reality of baby rearing, glitz and ease is exactly what we see in those magazines we peek at in line at the grocery store. People may complain that Hollywood glamorizes young pregnancy by holding up Jamie Lynn Spears and Ashlee Simpson as role models, but I’m more offended by the forty-is-the-new-twenty-two celebrities that are selling us regular women a bill of goods.

• Gorgeous Naomi Watts recently gave birth to a second son at age forty. She claims to have lost all her baby weight breastfeeding. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the live in personal chefs and trainers.

• Forty-year-old Australian actress Rachel Griffiths plays an American on Brothers and Sisters. She’s pregnant with her third and like our homegrown celebs, she has a penchant for unique names. She has a son named Banjo. Let’s hope age has wised her up. If not, she may end up with a cute little Fiddle or Harmonica.
• Desperate Housewife Marcia Cross gave birth to twin daughters at age forty-five. Seriously? At least she’ll be able to use her AARP travel discount to take them on their senior trip.
• Supermodel Stephanie Seymour recently had another baby at forty. Paparazzi caught her frolicking in the surf. Is it wrong to hate her? There’s not enough Pilates in the world to get me into a bikini post childbirth – and I started ‘young’.
• Perhaps the wisest is none other than the daughter of the King himself, Lisa Marie Presley. She welcomed twin girls last year. She was forty, but she was prepared. Ms. Presley had two other children 16 and 19 years ago, so now she’s got live-in childcare. That’s what I call planning ahead.

Show me these A-listers at nine o’clock in the morning. Show me these beautiful people frantically chasing down a toddler, trying to get neon poop out of the carpet, and dripping in spit up. Then I’ll be impressed. My advice? If you’re planning to get pregnant over forty, do yourself a favor and cancel your subscription to People magazine.

Cloth Diapers Are Not For Earth Mama Wannabes

I grew up on the west coast. I lived in Seattle when I had my first child. I shopped at Trader Joe’s across the street. I tried to be an Earth Mama, I really did. When my son was born I was determined to at least attempt the cloth diaper route, despite the fear of diaper rash. Even with memories of a smelly white bucket my mom used to rinse out my brothers nasty skivvies, I still tried to be a Good Mother.

I blame the hospital for my failure. Or maybe the custom of circumcision. Who came up with that? See, I had my boy circumcised before we left the hospital (oh yeah, that’s a whole other issue) and so we had to use disposable diapers for the first week or so. That’s what they told us. So I did and everything was fine.

Then came the exciting day of delivery from the diaper service. (Not only is using cloth diapers good for the earth, but any time you can use a service for a household chore it’s a bonus.) They showed up with this enormous stack of diapers and the contraption I was to keep the soiled ones inside until the next week when they swapped out the stinkies for fresh.

I quickly went to work trying out the new diapers. We blew through four outfits that afternoon. Seems I wasn’t quite into the knack of getting the things on properly. Instead of the one little disposable packet I had been managing, I was now faced with maneuvering not only an unwieldy piece of fabric , but also the little plastic pant that went over top. (I’m sure they’re much better now, but was ten years ago and you pretty much needed an engineering degree to figure them out.)

Still, I was determined. I was totally into it until it came time to pack. There’s nothing like timing to help you make a decision. We were off to visit the family for a weekend – two days. I counted out the diapers I’d need. Turns out you go through a LOT more cloth diapers than disposable on account of those throw-away kind hold about a gallon of pee. Cloth diapers hold more like a teaspoon. So here I am with this mountain of diapers on the bed. I filled a whole suitcase with them. Then I took them out of the suitcases, loaded them back into the sack they arrived in, and made a phone call.

Six hours of cloth diapering? Not bad, for a latte sippin‘ Earth Mama Wannabe.

Birth: You Can’t Plan It

The morning my daughter was born the sun rose, birds chirped, and I timed contractions. Then I called my doula, whose job it was to ensure that all doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, surgeons, friends, family, and husbands, stick to — The Birth Plan.

In case you’re unfamiliar, The Birth Plan consists of detailed instructions for how your baby will enter this world. It is formulated in the comfort of your living room while you and your doula sip tea and admire each other’s pedicures. The actual birth takes place in a greenish room where instead of chamomile, you would accept heroin from a street dealer should one conveniently appear.

After having suffered through childbirth, most women would worship the doctor who offers a cesarean. Not me. I wanted to actualize my womanhood. I needed to push that baby out. Having had a cesarean with my first, I opted for a VBAC, and in so doing also made my choice for minimal pharmaceutical assistance.

“Natural childbirth was fine, honey,” my mother said. “But that was before we had the drugs.”

For hours I labored according to The Birth Plan. I breathed, counted, and groaned. It sucked. I got stuck in the bathtub, unwilling to move. Even when the water got cold I wouldn’t budge, but remained there moaning like an injured cow. The contractions came so fast and lasted so long that it seemed like one continuous, gnawing, increasingly unbearable pain.

After eight hours, the pain brought me to my senses. I agreed to the drugs. Just a little mind you – just enough to take the edge off. But Demerol is a gateway drug. Forget nature, I wanted the needle. My Grape Nut eating, placenta-keeping doula was disappointed when I requested the epidural, but supported me anyway. It was, after all, a legitimate stipulation in Plan B, paragraph 3 of The Birth Plan.

I spent the next several hours turning from side to side, elevating one or another part of my body, and visualizing my baby descending the birth canal. (WAY easier when you’re high!) But my baby didn’t want to come out. We would get her just to the brink and she’d twist herself so that we thought she’d be stuck up there forever. After hours of monitoring and changing position and measuring, we decided to get her out.

My husband smiled, the doula frowned. I surrendered. Nurses shaved me and counted instruments, then rolled me to the OR. Suddenly I felt a sharp popping sensation unlike the slow and steady agony of labor. When I told the doctors, eyes opened wide and the surgeon ordered the nurse to check the baby’s heart rate. Again.
“You’re going under,” the doctor snapped. I watched the mask cover my nose and mouth.

***

Before I was fully aware, someone handed me a wriggly, sweet smelling, bundle. Her fresh skin peeked out at me from beneath soft flannel. She squirmed in my arms and arched her disproportionately large head toward my breast.

I couldn’t have planned it better.

For New Mamas

In honor of my friend SA and the new Baby Girl she’s expecting soon. (And also because I’ve applied for a blogging job at BumpBelly and wouldn’t I so rock it?) Here’s some unsolicited advice. Okay, some MORE unsolicited advice.

How and When to Stop Breastfeeding

The Truth About Labial Adhesions

How to Choose a Biblical Baby Name

How to Cope With Breastfeeding Challenges

How to Record Your Child’s Life in Words

Breast Care 101 For Nursing Mothers

Momma Knows: Bumbo Baby Seats

How to Start Bottle Feeding Your Baby

Cord Blood: Private Banking vs. Public Donation

Power of the Baby Playgroup