Paperweight
Consultant
Clerk in a state motor vehicle bureau
Anything in marketing
Choosing a Pediatrician
You should choose your pediatrician carefully, for his job is to examine your baby, give it shots, weigh it, measure it—in short, to do everything except attend to the baby when it is actually sick. When the baby is sick, either you or your pediatrician will be on vacation. This is an immutable law of nature.
Babysitters
The best babysitters, of course, are the baby’s grandparents. You feel completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is why most grandparents flee to Florida at the earliest opportunity.
If no grandparents are available, you will have to rent a teenager. You don’t want a modern teenager, the kind that hangs around the video-game arcade smoking Marlboros and contracting herpes. No, you want an old- fashioned, responsible teenager, the kind who attends Our Lady of Maximum Discomfort High School and belongs to the 4-H Club and wants to be a nun. Even then you don’t want to take any chances. The first time she takes care of your baby, you should never actually leave the house. Drive your car until it’s out of sight, then sneak back and crouch in the basement, listening for signs of trouble. In later visits, as you gain confidence in the sitter, you should feel free to eat sandwiches in the basement, and maybe even listen to the radio quietly. After all, this is your night out!
Safety Tip
Be sure to leave the babysitter a firstaid kit with tourniquet; the phone numbers of the pediatrician, the ambulance, the fire department, the police, the Poison Control Center, all your neighbors, the Mayo Clinic, all your relatives, the State Department, etc; and a note telling her where you are (“We’re in the basement”) and what to do in the event of an emergency (“Pound on the floor”).
Songs for New Babies
One fun thing to do with a small baby while it’s lying around is to sing it the traditional baby songs, the ones your mother sang when you were a baby. The words sometimes seem strange to us now, because your mother learned them from her mother, who learned them from her mother, and so on back to medieval England, when most people had the intelligence of kelp. Here are three of my favorites:
LADYBUG
(Robert Frost)
Ladybug, Ladybug Fly away home
Your children are all burned
They look like charred Raisinets
(Tickle baby under chin.)
HEG-A-LEG MOLLY
(Anonymous)
Heg-a-leg Molly
Daddy’s got a bunting
Why do you sleep so soon?
Wet his bed
And he broke his head
And Myron has gone to Vermont.
(Hold baby up and laugh as if you have just said something immensely amusing.)
LAND OF 1,000 DANCES
(Cannibal and the Headhunters)
I said a na Na na na na Na na na na na na na na na na Na na na na
(Check baby’s diaper.)
Three Traditional Baby Games
OKLAHOMA BABY CHICKEN HAT
Grasp your baby firmly and place it on your head, stomach side down, then stride about the room, bouncing on the balls of your feet and clucking to the tune of “Surrey with the Fringe on Top.”
HERE COMES THE BABY EATER
Place your baby on the carpet, face up, then crawl around on all fours and announce, “I’m so hungry! I could eat a baby!” Then crawl over and gobble up the baby, starting at the feet, and periodically raising your head and shouting, “Great baby! Delicious!” Babies love this game, but you don’t want to play it when other grown-ups are around, because they will try to take custody away from you.
ATTACK OF THE SPACE BABIES
Lie on your back on the floor and hold your baby over you, face down. Move the baby around in the manner of a hovering spacecraft while making various high-pitched science fiction noises such as “BOOOOOOOWEEEEEEEOOOOO.” Feign great fear as the baby attempts to land on the planet Earth. (NOTE: Wear protective clothing, as space babies often try to weaken the earth’s resistance by spitting up on it.)
Babies and Pets
First of all, get rid of your cat. Cats are scum. You’ve read newspaper stories about elderly widows who die and leave their entire estates to their pet cats, right? Well, your cat reads those stories too, and has spent most of its skulking, devious little life dreaming about inheriting all your money. You know where it goes when it disappears for hours at a time? Investment seminars, that’s where.
So if you bring a baby into the home, the cat will see the baby as a rival for your estate and will do anything to turn you against it. Many instances of so-called colic are really nothing more than a cat repeatedly sneaking into a baby’s room in the dead of night and jabbing the baby in the stomach.
Dogs, of course, would never do anything like that. They’re far too stupid to think of it. So you can keep your dog. In fact, many dogs come to love their masters’ babies, often carrying them around gently by the scruffs of their necks, licking them incessantly and refusing to let anybody—even the parents!—near the baby. It’s the cutest thing you ever saw, and it really cuts down on child-care costs. Of course, you have to weigh this against the fact that the child develops a tendency to shed and attack squirrels.
