Kids are wonderful. Where would we be without them?
At the movies, that’s where.
In the year after my daughter was born I went to the movies exactly once. That’s life, when you have a baby, because babies are disruptive. They disrupt your sleep, your social life, your peace of mind, and especially your bookshelves. With a baby on the loose it’s a struggle to get anything done. What’s really scary, though, is that in terms of my journey up Mount Responsibility, I’m still at base camp.
Baby Hazel is 14 months old, and my wife and I seem to spend all of our time fighting the endless tide of toys, clothes, and food that floods our apartment. We’ve also begun the Sisyphean task of baby-proofing. As soon as we secure one door, drawer, or appliance, she finds some other dangerous thing to get into. At this point I’m running out of ideas — I mean, how do you baby-proof a table?
Hazel is tall for 14 months, and quick with her little fingers, which is why every piece of furniture with a horizontal surface now has a designated margin of several inches around the edge that must be kept clear. Our small “dining room” table (as if a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn would have a dining room!) used to be high enough that Hazel could only reach things right near the edge. As she grows taller, the plot of safe real estate on the table grows ever smaller — it’s like one of those tiny island nations that’s becoming uninhabitable due to rising sea levels. If Hazel represents global warming, then the residents of Table Island (including the salt and pepper shakers, silverware, and my lunch) will soon be evacuated to a geographic locale with a much higher elevation — like the plateau atop Mount Refrigerator.
By the time you’ve reached adulthood you’ve had a lifetime of growing accustomed to the natural rhythms of human activities, but a baby doesn’t recognize those rhythms. As in, “We were playing peek-a-boo for the last half hour, and now it’s time to settle down — you play with your toys while daddy responds to emails and writes some hilarious replies to other people’s Facebook posts. Is that too much to ask?”
Yes, it is too much to ask, and here’s why: you and your baby live in the same space, but you occupy two entirely different worlds. In her world, there is no email. The internet does not exist, but your computer keyboard does, and it looks like a lot of fun! And why push just one of those clicky buttons when with even just a baby-sized hand you can smash seven or eight of them all at once?
In your world all of the objects possess unseen meaning and importance. Every bit of paper on your desk is tied to other objects and people and events. In her world, paper is just paper, and it’s fun to crumple and shake and shred. The only thing special about a piece of paper, for her, is that tearing it causes daddy to come running with a funny look on his face. That little bit of magic potency makes paper even more exciting than it already was! Other than that, you rip it up, or chew off a corner, then leave it on the floor — and so what? The world is no different than it was five minutes earlier.
Our baby lives moment to moment, oblivious to the consequences of most of her actions, and unaware of the meaning of so many things. This makes life difficult for us grown-ups, but in other ways it makes things easier. Right now I can still swear like a sailor, and it doesn’t mean anything to her. I can sneak a scoop of ice cream at 9 am and she won’t bring it up to mom later because she won’t have a lasting memory of it. It’s only just recently occurred to me that I’ve come to take all of that for granted.
A few days ago, after giving Hazel her bath, I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub and holding her on my lap, wrapped in her hooded-towel like a little gnome. I was using a plastic cup to rinse the suds off of her bath toys. As I poured water from the cup she stared, transfixed. For once she wasn’t flailing her arms, trying to grab the shimmering stream. Instead, she was just watching so intently that it struck me that one day, suddenly, she will remember the fascinating things that she sees. From that moment on she will no longer be the little baby who only lives from one moment to the next, and I will inhabit a huge new world of responsibility. Everything I do or say will directly shape her world. Whether I react to a difficult situation with fear and anger or empathy and humility, she will notice.
For all the exasperation we feel as parents, and in spite of the fact that we can’t find time to get anything done, we still have a surprising amount of freedom. Sure, we have a lot of responsibility on a moment to moment basis, but when it comes to the big ethical and philosophical questions, we still have time to breathe easy. But not for long.
As wonderful and pure as the relationship with my little baby is right now, there’s still a certain detachment — a margin that separates our two different worlds. It’s a margin that’s only going to become smaller and smaller as her world merges with ours.
I can’t wait.
Tim Perrins is a part-time stay-at-home dad who lives with his wife and their highly disruptive baby in Park Slope, Brooklyn. More of his thoughts about babies and other things that confuse him can be found at www.RevoltOfTheImbeciles.blogspot.com.
