junk

Eli and I sometimes have very different approaches to this parenting thing.  We feel the same on big issues like sleep and discipline and fun, but there are other areas where we disagree greatly.

My son has a lovey.  It’s a little stuffed lamb he has had since he was born and sometime around when he was seven months old, he started to get very attached to it.  When we’d put him down to sleep, he would clutch it to his face and chew its ears while growling with pleasure at its lovely lamby softness.  He loves the lamb and knows it by name and will even crawl to the bottom of the stairs and offer himself up for a nap when it’s time because he knows it means some quality cuddling with his lamb.  When we noticed the bond forming, and the special sleeping powers the lamb had over our child, Eli and I both agreed that the lamb will never leave the crib.  I’ve heard all the stories about frantic parents losing their child’s lovey at the mall and not discovering it until bedtime when the child, so dependent on the lovey to go to sleep, immediately goes on a twelve day AWAKE spree full of night after endless night of sorrowful wailing.  That won’t be me.  So the lovey stays in the crib, and if you can imagine how your face would look after a few nights of a milk-mouthed drooly baby chewing on it, you can understand that the lamb is usually gross.

Eli thinks we should wash it every day because he is afraid of lovey germs.  He thinks that if we don’t wash it constantly the baby will get ear infections and colds and eventually POLIO.  He feels strongly that the lamb should always be clean and I always catch him sneaking it into the washer.  I, on the other hand, know a little something about lovey seasoning, and definitely enough to know that washing it too much ruins all the baby’s hard work.  When I was young I had a lion I slept with.  I drooled on his face and chewed his nose and rubbed my cheeks in the wet spots.  I would drift off to sleep every night with the lovely musty aroma of my own spit dancing in my nose.  That is until my mom would notice the funk and wash it.  Then it would be spring fresh and I’d have to start all over again, and it would never feel just right until after a few days of intense re-seasoning.

Eli is ridiculous.  You don’t get sick from a smelly lamb that lives in a crib.  Just like you don’t catch cold from going outside with wet hair or without a jacket.

Another thing we disagree on is food.  This one isn’t as bad lately because Joey is almost 13 months old and he can eat just about anything.  But when he was still new to food, I was reading a lot of books on baby nutrition and I became convinced that all babies are extremely sensitive to food and I was a big fan of avoiding the allergic reaction.  I did that thing where you introduce one new food, wait three days and then introduce another new food, and so on until all foods have been introduced.  The three day waitout is so that you can isolate an allergic reaction immediately.  During this new food phase I would always catch Eli messing with the schedule by letting the baby have a taste of ice cream or a lick off his tootsie pop.  I even caught him letting our six month old child gum the edge of a chocolate bar.  I think Eli is probably right in his relaxed stance on baby tastings.  It’s not like the kid drinks coke or eats raw sugar.  And we don’t have a history of allergies anywhere in our families.

While I'm talking about food... Eli is convinced that this child could never choke so he gives him huge food like a whole piece of toast or an entire banana.  Meanwhile, I am convinced that if I don’t cut his food to the size of a crumb he will get it lodged in his throat and die.  This is a tricky one.  I don’t really know who is right, and probably we’re both wrong.  When I cut the food into tiny little morsels, Joey will just scoop ten of them into his mouth at once so what’s the point?  But thinking that he will just hold a slice of toast in his hand and nibble it and then have to leap into action and dig it out of his throat when he takes it and crams the whole thing into his mouth is stupid too.

I thought there were more things we disagree on but now that I'm listing them I realize maybe it’s just because we argue constantly about the same two or three things every day that it seems like more.  Oh yeah, Eli calls the baby’s privates his junk.  I don’t know what he should call it, but junk?

Comments

[Andrea]

I think spit is gross. I know my baby will have an abundance of it and I'm hoping my motherly instincts will help me conquer my aversion to it, but there is no way I'm keeping a slobbery spit-soaked toy around. Nope.

[Isobel D]

I had a blanket that I was attached too. My father absolutely hated that I wanted it with me everywhere. One time I came into the living room and I saw a piece of my blanket sticking out of the wood stove doors as if someone had thrown it in the fire, shut the doors and the corner had gotten caught. I totally freaked out and started screaming. Eventually I found my blanket minus the corner he had used to trick me with, neatly folded on top of the refrigerator and I could at least go to bed that night with part of my blanket. How they finally got rid of it was when we took a family vacation to Disneyland, they threw it away so when I got home it was "left at the hotel." Traumatizing!!