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| From Bambini |
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Well just as we thought there might be break in hurricane LucaNico, tropical depression Teething arrived. This where a babies teeth slowly break through their gums like a road crew with twenty jack hammers breaking open the highway. Judging by the screaming, drooling and frothing at the mouth (that goes on all day until they collapse like they were hit by a snipers bullet) its probably equivalent to 20 toothaches at once.
Soothing them lasts about ten seconds. This morning I was awakened to the sounds of a double baby homicide straight out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Barbara had Luca in the Bjorn and was bouncing him with absolutely no effect. He was screaming and would not stop.
I took him into the bedroom where I can usually entertain him with a mixture of a thorough examination of his feet and blowing raspberries on his tummy button. Nothing doing. By this time Barbara was walking around with Nico who was just as hysterical and we had an emergency hallway conference.
This is one of those "deer in the headlights" moments when you realize that you are totally ill equipped to deal with young children and, what was the hospital thinking when they sent us home without proper training.
So we did what I assume every other parent does and reached into that large dark chasm of things "we have heard work". Its the same place all those old wives tales live like:
- If you are craving salty foods while pregnant, you can count on having a boy.
- A baby can not see it's reflection until they are a year old
- Cutting your nails on Friday or Sunday is bad luck.
- If your left ear itches, someone is saying something bad about you.
- knock on wood three times when speaking of good luck
- food should be stirred clockwise
- If you make an ugly face, it will freeze that way
- eating bread crusts give you curly hair
- if you swallow chewing gum it will stick to your bones
- you only get half the calories if you don't chew the snacks
I must add a disclaimer here. Trying to think clearly when you have just awakened from a sound sleep that only began two hours previously with two kids screaming in your ears is not exactly easy.
Its like that moment when you get on the freeway heading in the wrong direction and suddenly realize a life or death decision has to made in the next three seconds while cars are whizzing by in the opposite direction with their headlights are in your eyes. So, that being said the following account may seem a little less insane that it does writing it now.
I looked to Barbara for inspiration and she just blurted out "Frozen Artichokes"! I thought why not. What could be wrong with a switch in diet. If it works for old aerobics instructors like Richard Simmons, why not babies, and what could possibly be wrong with Trader Joe's organic vegetables?
Now I could blame Barbara for this, as she made the initial suggestion, but in the moment, I thought that was about the best idea she'd had in a long time. Frozen Articokes I mused, why didn't I think of that.
After diving into the freezer we were each armed with a frozen piece of artichoke heart. With only one hand free I realized it needed a little reshaping so I bit off some of the thickness so it could go into his little mouth. Then I just held the slippery item in Luca's mouth waiting for him to crunch it down.
As I waited, the taste of this nasty vegetable started to chemically alter the toothpaste residue on my teeth, producing battery acid flavor saliva. To my surprise, Luca didn't seem to object to it at all. I began to wonder if babies had any sense of taste at all.
What I didn't realize was, she just wanted something frozen to put in their mouths, because the cold temperature numbs the gums above the teeth. Oblivious to all this, I held the slippery item in Luca's mouth waiting expectantly for him to crunch it down.
Barbara then made a comment about the temperature of the vegetable not the taste that he was enjoying. I still didn't get it. In my half asleep state, I began to wonder if we were going to need a thermometer to feed the babies from now on? Did we have to make sure all their food was at a temperature acceptable to them?
I know Barbara is a "foodie" but can babies of a foodie demand organic vegetables served at a precise temperature? I didn't dare contemplate the ramifications of this over the next 18 years. I concluded that a full internet search on "Fine Dining Babies" was in order later, assuming I could get back to bed again.
As I pondered all this waiting for Luca to swallow it, I caught the look from Barbara. I'd seen her give this look to a well meaning neighbor that dared to assert that the worlds best ice cream was not made in Italy. I realized id missed something but I couldn't grasp what it was until she then began explaining that the idea was to rub it around his gums, not feed it to him!
After doing a poor job of putting on a face of "I knew that", I suggested crushed Ice instead. I broke up a cube, but it didn't co-operate very well. Instead of the multiple long, thin strips I was hoping for, I got largish tooth shaped pieces in amongst a pile of smoosh.
Luca had begun his screaming fit again, so I grabbed the first piece I saw and we headed back to the living room where I sat Luca on my knee. He was thrashing around like junkie without his fix, making it really hard to slide a piece of slippery ice into his mouth.
I decided to sit in front of the mirror because it was easier to hold him firmly with his back against my chest, and look in the mirror to guide the ice. Well, as we all know (at least when awake and alert), "this way" is "that way" in the mirror. As it turns out Luca got a refreshing ice facial for a while before I got the hang of it. He didn't seem to appreciate it quite as much as I had hoped. I figured at least he'll have a good reason to hate me when reaches puberty now.
Remarkably, once I got the thing in his mouth, he totally relaxed. It was working! I was just about to tell Barbara how well I had done when the ice slipped between my fingers, and with the pressure I was exerting on it, it shot into his mouth.
There was a horrifying pause. I looked in the mirror and saw a totally new facial expression on our baby, followed by a large gulp. We both just looked at each other in surprise for a moment. Then he looked very pleased with himself, like the cat that swallowed the canary!
Luckily Barbara was distracted with Nico at that exact moment, so I pretended nothing had happened. After that Luca didn't have much to say about anything, and went straight to sleep. I went back to bed satisfied I had invented another baby cure for my forthcoming book "2000 things your Doctor warned you never to do".
This week I got a haircut at the local "barber" shop. It is owned and run by very nice Vietnamese people that speak no English whatsoever. I chose this place very carefully as an experiment, because after years of being concerned about a haircut and paying a fortune for this, I no longer care.
Over the years I realized that even with the most articulate hairdresser, if I asked for one thing I got something else. If I said "the usual" I got something different automatically. So I began to wonder what I would get if I used people that had absolutely no understanding of what I wanted at all?
When I saw the vietnamese, poorly spelled, hand written sign tied to a tree in the shopping center next to Costco, I knew I had stuck gold. Since then, I have conducted three or four haircut experiments there, and amazingly, they all come out the same! This week however, I arrived after closing and the owner was the only one there. She spoke very good English and so I had a little conversation with my cut.
When I arrived, she asked me come back tomorrow I said I could not, so she opened up for me. I felt I owed her an explanation, so I told her about the babies, and the lack of sleep, and having no time for anything, and so on and so forth.
She then began to tell me about her son who cried all the time and would not sleep. She said she was so tired and had no energy for months. She wanted to return to work but she just couldn't do it. Then she said that her husband had this miracle solution and all of sudden she had energy, and her life went back to normal.
I have shortened the long winded description of all the things she could not do for the sake of brevity, but it took about 15 minutes to fully catalog everything. By the time she got to the cure, she had my full attention. I was imagining all kinds of clever treatments that you might find get from a personal trainer or spa resort in the desert. But no. After great anticipation, it turns out the miracle cure her husband had come up with, was in fact brilliantly simple, powdered milk!
Now at this point you are probably thinking she's an easy target and i'm just making tasteless fun of an ethnic minority. I promise you this is not the case. This kind of experience is what you attract after you have kids. It's crazy.
She then spent the next fifteen minutes explaining how she brought it to work every day and religiously made a glass whenever she felt a little fatigue creeping up on her, then wouldn't you know it; she's all peppy again! Wow!
Once she got started telling the story, she got even more enthusiastic and animated. As she waved the trimmer in the air above my head, it seemed there was no end to the list of things she could do on powdered milk. I was half expecting to hear she entered and won the Tour De France with it.
During this very long and tedious infomercial for plain old powdered milk, I began to ponder the genesis of this insanity. I pictured the poor husband, listening to her go on and on about how tired she was one night while trying to get some sleep, and finally deciding to try to find something to help.
He probably thought of supplements and glass of water, but when he went into the kitchen realized they ran out weeks ago. So he filled a glass with water and that's when the baby powder caught his eye. Hmmmm... Can't hurt right? Lets see, two scoops for baby, lets try four for Mama!
The total irony of the whole thing is that the placebo effect took over, and because she thought it would work it did! Brilliant. If only Barbara had that much confidence in me, I could get her to eat Marmite soldiers for breakfast.
After what seemed like an eternity, the story was over and my haircut complete. I felt obliged to tip her a little extra for sharing such an obviously profound life changing discovery with me. I prayed she would not ask me if I wanted to try some. Instead she suddenly switched subject and said that in her country, if the babies cry a lot, they take them to the witch Doctor. I explained we had one of those at Kaiser.
She then told me that to rid the babies of evil spirits, they take the babies clothes and throw them out of the window. Then someone collects them and the burn them in the yard. Now that's the best idea I have heard all month. I now had a legitimate reason for torching some of these straight jacket outfits that Barbara forces the babies into. I'm sure the Barbecue would kill as many evil spirits as a bonfire.
Anyway with all these revelations, I entirely forgot to check the haircut, but I am sure it was just like the others.
