Super Funtime Slumberpalooza!

Despite the most patient attention, the most loving guidance, and the most familiar, relaxing routine, it is often difficult to induce Charlie to go to sleep at night. Won't you help?

Special bonus Variety Pak™: After you've settled him in his crib, you'll have just enough time to do this challenging word-seek puzzle before he's yelling his wee fuzzy head off yet again.

I guess they do think homosexuality is genetic.

From the AP wire:

New Rules For Sperm Donors

To the dismay of gay-rights activists, the U.S. government is about to implement new rules recommending that any man who has engaged in homosexual sex in the previous five years be barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor.

[...] "Under these rules, a heterosexual man who had unprotected sex with HIV-positive prostitutes would be OK as a donor one year later, but a gay man in a monogamous, safe-sex relationship is not OK unless he's been celibate for five years [.]"

Lambda Legal has suggested a screening procedure based on sexual behavior, not sexual orientation. Prospective donors — gay or straight — would be rejected if they had engaged in unprotected sex in the previous 12 months with an HIV-positive person, an illegal drug user, or "an individual of unknown HIV status outside of a monogamous relationship."

But an FDA spokeswoman cited FDA documents suggesting that officials felt the broader exclusion was prudent even if it affected gay men who practice safe sex.

"The FDA is very much aware that strict exclusion policies eliminate some safe donors," said one document.

Read the full article.

Stick with me, kid

When Charlie is fractious, I look into his furious blue eyes and I threaten to send him places. I do this, of course, in the most soothing and sugared of tones, crooning lovingly, stroking his face with a gentle fingertip as I describe with relish the places he'll go.

Thrilling destinations include:

• ferrying a canary down the deepest shaft in the busiest coal mine in turn-of-the-century West Virginia;
  
• chained to the back bench of the galley of a leaky Venetian scaloccio, plying the tiniest of oars beside the sweatiest of convicts; and
  
• a comfortable nest of rags in a Dickensian workhouse circa 1832.

(That last threat usually precedes a spirited mother-and-son promenade around the house, with me bellowing in my best baritone, "One boyyyyyyyy...boy for saaaaaaale!" And then, just for fun, I try to pick Charlie's pocket.)

Sometimes — okay, often — I threaten to send him to the glue factory.

Sometimes I call him Elmer.

He wouldn't make much glue, I know. Paul points this out to me on a regular basis. "But he'd make," I insist, "at least enough for a glue stick."

He corrects me. "Just enough for a postage stamp."

I privately think we'd get at least two stamps' worth, but there's no need to quibble. The glue factory it is. Hey, the world needs stamps.

A mother's day

I woke at 10 this morning, warm and lazy, luxuriating in the barely remembered joy of sleeping late. I sat bolt upright in bed, however, when I woke enough to realize I had no idea what Charlie was up to. I ran down to the kitchen, where Paul was cooking a pound of bacon just the way I like it (chewy, not crisp) and making conversation with a calm and happy Charlie, who smiled up at me from the safe embrace of his bouncy seat.

Paul was eager to report that Charlie had wakened him no earlier than 8, and not with his usual screams. No, he'd been cooing musically into the baby monitor. And not only that, he hadn't made a peep after I put him down at midnight. That's right — not only did he let us sleep in, he slept a solid eight hours in a row. I smiled disbelievingly at Paul. Charlie smiled sunnily at me.

It was the best Mother's Day ever.

Okay. Now. Put down the crack pipe, people. Here is what really happened.

7:30. I wake to the sound of Charlie shifting in his crib. I vault out of bed so that I can warm his bottle before his impending screams wake Paul.

7:32. Too late. Charlie is screaming. I am walking him around the den, fast, hoping that the gentle joggle of my gait will soothe him for the next few minutes.

7:33. The gentle joggle of my gait does not soothe him for the next few minutes.

7:36. The bottle is warm at last. We sit on the sofa and Charlie drinks peacefully.

7:39. Charlie begins rehearsals for his upcoming Riverdance audition, frantically churning his legs while keeping his upper body absolutely still.

7:42. Charlie begins to growl.

7:44. With a grunt of satisfaction, Charlie presents me with his Mother's Day present: a homemade craft project. It is green.

7:45. Diaper change. I am swift and efficient. He is trying to decide whether to laugh or yell. Normally I would lean over and plaster his face with a barrage of noisy kisses, which usually tips him over squarely into laughter. I can't do this now without dragging my bathrobe across his shit-smeared scrotum.

7:45. Charlie has decided. Yelling it is.

7:46. Back on the sofa with the bottle. Charlie only noodles around, chewing the nipple, thrusting it out with his tongue, dribbling his drink down the slope of his cheek into the crease of his neck.

7:48. I make the executive decision that mealtime is over. I know what: we will go to the baby gym for our morning workout!

7:50. Charlie would prefer not to.

7:50. Small Bartleby and I go instead to look at his mobile. He happily — or irritably — kicks his heels fast against his crib mattress. It is a mesmerizing tattoo, and I am lulled into a stupor as I glide in the Dutailier.

8:00. Fretful noises drown out the melodious notes of the mobile, and I go to pick Charlie up. I gather him against my chest, retrieve his pacifier, and return to the glider. We rock. I sing. He frets, yawns, squirms, cries, but his protests are feeble.

8:15. Charlie is mostly placid. I rise and put him in the crib.

8:16. I rise and remove him from the crib.

8:17. Paul enters with toast and coffee, my Mother's Day breakfast, then goes back to bed at my behest. I am glad I tried not to wake him; he tells me he was up with an angry, unfriendly Charlie at 4.

8:17 - 9:30. Rock. Sing. Fret. Yawn. Squirm. Cry. Into crib. Out of crib. Into crib. Out of crib. Into crib...

9:30. I bolt my toast and my now-cold coffee.

9:32. I creep out of the room and into my sewing room for 40 minutes of respite.

9:50. Clearly Charlie cannot tell time. First I let him complain for a few minutes, hoping he'll soothe himself. When he doesn't, I attempt to settle him again, patting him rhythmically and "sssshhhh"ing him as he lies in his crib.

9:55. Nothing doing. Crying. I pick up Charlie and rock him, holding him close, willing him to settle back into drowsiness.

10:10. More food? No. More mobile? No. More baby gym? No. More walking around the house looking out windows? No. More quiet conversation and meaningful eye contact? No. More crying? Yes, thanks!

10:30. Paul is up for good, and offers to take the boy. I suggest that he get breakfast first.

10:30-10:40. I sit and cry, wretched as I remember yesterday's fantastic fluke of a two-hour nap, while Charlie pours his indignant complaints into the sympathetic ear of the Whoozit. (He is a fiendishly clever boy for being able to find an ear on that bizarre sport of nature.) I hope Paul's eating fast.

10:40. Paul returns and takes over. I retreat to my office.

10:42. I turn off the baby monitor because it's demoralizing to hear Charlie laughing and Paul praising him for being such a smiley boy after the morning we've had.

11:00. Charlie's in his crib. I hear the click of his mobile from my office down the hall. He's vocalizing, not quite crying. I creep off to shower, vowing it will be a long one.

11:01. The water pressure in the shower is so low that it's difficult to get wet all over. I'm out of conditioner and almost out of soap; I make do with the small sliver that is left. When I drop it, it lodges itself in the drain beyond the reach of my fingers. Water begins to back up in the tub. I do not bother to shave my legs.

11:15. Out of the shower but naked and wet, I hear Charlie crying in his room. I look in on him, expecting to find him alone, but Paul's there with him. Not interested in napping, and not so smiley now.

11:30. Now dressed, I join Paul and Charlie in the den, where Charlie is glaring at the toys dangling from the baby gym. As long as Paul makes the stuffed cardinal squeak and swoop around Charlie's head, he's quiet, if not happy; the moment Paul gives the poor wheezing bird a breather Charlie cries again.

11:45. Charlie is still yawning, crying, kicking his feet. I tell Paul I'm going to take him to his room to try yet again to settle him for a snooze. Paul insists that I take a break instead. I come and read Anne Lamott's latest article in Salon, and cackle desperately at this line: "I see that children fill the existential hollowness many people feel; that when we have children, we know they will need us, and maybe love us, but we don't have a clue how hard it is going to be."

11:50. Charlie has quieted. I hear the clunk of the catches as Paul raises the side of the crib. And then silence.

12:00. Paul enters and asks for a paper clip so he can monkey with the shower head.

12:00. If Charlie were awake, we'd give him his Prevacid, then parade him around for half an hour to distract him from his hunger. The best-case scenario is that he'll wake after his customary 40 minutes; that way we can give him his medication, jolly him along for half an hour, and then feed him before he's inconsolably starving. I decide there is something wrong with me when one minute I'm hoping he'll sleep for two hours, then the next I'm hoping he wakes as soon as ever.

12:10. Hurrah! It's past noon! I could have a Bloody Mary. I could, that is, if we had any tomato juice in the house. I wonder if I could concoct an approximation out of that expensive jar of pasta sauce I've been saving. I bet no one has ever invented a cocktail with butter and chanterelles in it.

12:20. I hear Charlie grunting on the monitor, half an hour after the beginning of his nap (and I use the term loosely).

12:30. Charlie has been dosed and is being raced around the house in Paul's sling. It's chilly and windy out, so we won't take him today for his usual walk around the neighborhood.

12:40. I take over so that Paul can experience the new and improved shower. As I lope around the house with Charlie held safely vertical in the Baby Björn, I hear Paul scream as his skin is flayed off by the force of the spray.

1:05. Charlie can eat. I free him from the Björn and feed him. As he gulps, he lets out a veritable fanfaronade of flatulence. I dare to hope gas is what's been making him so pissy all day, and give him a dropper of Mylicon.

1:45. After naps even worse than usual, Charlie is clearly exhausted: he's falling asleep with the bottle in his mouth. I put him in his crib. He wakes fully and cries. And cries. I pick him up and return to the rocker, putting him face-down against my chest, and start to pat his back in a comforting rhythm.

1:45:15. Charlie spits up down the V-neck of my T-shirt. I feel the warm undigested milk pooling in the band of my bra.

1:45:16. I say to Paul in my best Exorcist voice, "TAKE HIM." Paul does with alacrity.

1:50. After changing my bra and my shirt and composing myself, I return to Charlie's room and offer to take him back. Paul, perhaps fearful of my preternatural calm, declines and suggests that I go make myself some lunch.

2:00. Charlie is asleep. Paul comes downstairs as I'm stirring the pound of spaghetti I plan to consume in a single shameful binge. "What made you so sure," I ask, "that I wouldn't drive to Kansas?" "Not enough gas," he grimly says.

2:25. Finish spaghetti. Think about the pound of bacon in the refrigerator.

2:30. Charlie is shifting. Paul creeps in to shush him. I hear Paul's soothing "ssshhh" on the baby monitor.

2:31. Silence. I suspect Paul has slipped Charlie a mickey.

3:00. I call my mother. I haven't called her before now because I didn't want her to hear Charlie screaming incessantly in the background. I spend most of the phone call whimpering. I think she believes I'm exaggerating, or coping badly with an ordinary situation, because she keeps saying things like, "Well, they're supposed to cry sometimes...!" Note to self: next time don't wait until Charlie's sleeping to call, so that she can experience the magic.

3:45. While I'm still on the phone, Charlie wakes. It does not escape my notice that he slept for nearly two hours. I go into the den, where he is pumping plastic in the baby gym with Paul as his spotter, to inform him that he is the finest baby alive. He smiles at me.

4:30. We go to the grocery store, our first ordinary errand with baby in tow. Paul puts Charlie in the sling, I push the basket, and we do our shopping without incident. Without incident. No yelling. No crying. Nothing but big-eyed rapt attention.

5:30. Charlie falls asleep as soon as he's buckled back into his car seat. I notice the time as we pull out of the parking lot and breathe a sigh of relief. By the time we get home, it will be time for bath, bottle, and bed.

6:00. Charlie is out cold. We leave him in the car while we unload the groceries. Seeing that he's still asleep, we leave him there while we put the food away. We debate the wisdom of leaving him out there until he wakes. I cite the appearance of a badass-looking raccoon in the vicinity to support my plan to rescue him. I only embroidered a little bit; it's probably not exactly true that the raccoon had a switchblade in its pocket.

6:15. I finally go out to the garage to peek and see that he's sitting quietly in his car seat, eyes open, playing with his own fingers, minding his own tiny beeswax. I bring him into the house.

6:15. I take Charlie upstairs to undress him while Paul readies the bath. I blow noisy raspberries on Charlie's bare belly and get a rollicking chortle in return.

6:16. I deposit a series of noisy kisses on Charlie's cheek, making him emit a magnificent belly laugh.

6:16. Charlie pees copiously and joyfully on the terrycloth cover of his changing pad. I give mental thanks to my friends inside the computer who sent spares, then whisk Charlie downstairs to the kitchen where his bath awaits.

6:17. Charlie is agreeable at bathtime. As usual, I pour water over his head without covering his face. It seems he is starting to like that, because he smiles as the water rolls down his cheeks.

6:30. Paul gives Charlie a relaxing massage and dresses him in my favorite footie pajamas.

6:35. I sit in the glider and offer Charlie a warmed bottle, which he politely accepts. He eats and burps without incident.

6:50. I bring Charlie up against my chest again, certain he couldn't possibly be so rude as to sully my décolletage again. I pat him as he squirms a bit, trying to crawl up my chest as if it were Everest and he a well-paid Sherpa. He calms to the sound of a lullaby, and finally sighs his surrender into relaxation.

6:55. I put him in his crib and cover him with a fleece blanket. He is awake, but ready.

6:56. Silence.

And that was my day as a mother.

I should, however, add that as of now...

10:08

...I plan to take a shower under the blistering jets of our newly enhanced Speakman, if only to allow the jetting torrents to chisel off the spit-up that has hardened in the valley between my breasts.

Good night, and happy Mother's Day. May all of my friends here someday enjoy the wonder of such a day, but only from 3:45 on.

The list and a quiz

I've just spent two hours — yes, two hours — updating the big list of blogs. If you've requested a link or a change and it's not included, I apologize; there's a lot that gets lost in the shuffle of my inbox these days. To make sure I don't miss future requests, I'm asking that any notes about the list be sent to me with the word LIST — yes, LIST — in the subject line. Those notes will automatically be filtered to a separate folder so that I can easily find them when it's time to update again.

Although I don't find a lot of time to do it, I enjoy updating the list because it leads me to discover blogs I hadn't found before. Not only do I visit the blogs people ask me to list; I visit sites they've linked to themselves, and often add them to my own frequent reading. So thanks for building those blogrolls.

With tonight's update I've added some excellent adoption blogs; blogs by people who are just embarking on IVF; blogs by people I hope never get that far; blogs that hail the glorious high of retrieval drugs; blogs that engage in lie-back-and-think-of-England sex; and blogs that come loaded with their own ready-to-eat placenta — yes, placenta.

It's also worth noting that plenty of you moved from "En route" to "Arrived." It gives me such pleasure to make those changes. I fervently hope we're all there soon.

...

What's wrong with this picture of Charlie? Bet you can't guess!

Hahahaha, y'all are such dumbasses. I can't believe you haven't spotted it! God, it's so obvious!

To read the answer, select the following text with your mouse.

It's 2 PM and the bed's not yet made.

The nuns on this blog are decent, I tell you

K. writes:

I have a dear, dear friend who is just a few weeks pregnant after her fourth in vitro. She had a hint of cervical cancer (bad Paps) in her early 30s, so it's a miracle she even has this chance...she's nearly 40 now.

Anyway, I really want to send her flowers, but am afraid I don't  dare...just in case.  How about a plant that says: "Here's something to mark this wonderful time in your life. May it grow strong for you along with your other project!"

But what if she loses her baby?!?!?!?!?!?!? I made a mistake once when a good friend who already had two kids got pregnant again. I took her a beautiful flowering plant with three big blooms on it. She was happy about it and liked it but then she lost the baby a couple of weeks later.

Maybe you could ask your readers for me. Help.

Okay, here's what I think. I think you should send flowers. I also think you should send a box of chocolates, a flock of doves, a singing telegram, a big brass band, a squadron of Shriners riding little teeny cars in speedy figure eights, and a gleaming new Mercedes with one of those giant shiny red bows atop it.

Come to think of it, a pizza might not go amiss, either.

I think it's right and fitting to celebrate this beginning with your friend. Sure, her pregnancy could fail — we're none of us immune — but I don't think that awareness should keep you from showing you share her hopes. I suspect at 39 with four IVFs under her belt, your friend has enough misgivings to go around, so I don't think yours should stop you from acknowledging the joy that comes with them.

I'm sure some would suggest that you'd want to be measured in your enthusiasm, that you should take your cue from the way your friend behaves about it. But I know I was grateful to the friends who embraced my pregnancies fully, even as they were failing, even as I warned them not to get all that excited. And if I'm honest, I'll admit that I felt a great disappointment in friends who hesitated to get happy, as if they thought a pregnancy was already doomed just because it was mine.

I can't say this for sure, but if you asked your other friend whether she regretted getting flowers from you before she miscarried, I bet she would say no.

Friends, infertiles, mothers, mothers-to-be, miscarriers, misanthropes, perverts searching unsuccessfully for "no crotch panty nun": what do you think?

The drama of the normal child

What, you mean there isn't any complicated medical reason for Charlie to wake up five times in the middle of the night, he just does it because he feels like it? And that smiling gurgle isn't uniformly a sign that he's about to throw up? How am I going to understand this kid if there aren't Rules?

The obsession I fall into most often is that of the third royal physician in The Madness of King George III -- if I have to smell it (not optional) and clean it up, I might as well worry about why it's tarry or curdy large or small or whatever other variation he's decided to produce. But I can also fuss about how often Charlie is burping or eating or whether he's holding his head up as high off the floor as he did yesterday.

I know that Charlie isn't an intensively-monitored patient, but it's so much easier to relate to him that way, or to think of him as a particularly smart but clumsy puppy. When he laughs to see one of us, or tries desperately to win a smiling contest, it's frighteningly apparent that there's beginning to be a tiny little human being in there. And then I think about how long it took me to learn to tie my shoes.

I don't consider myself AP

Here is why I don't call myself an attachment parent: I cannot find it in me to take Charlie completely seriously when he's screaming in rage if he also happens to be wearing a butter-yellow hoodie with ducks on it.

Oh, sure, I'll comfort him. I'll strive to figure out why he's howling. I'll do my very best to make things right in his tiny world. But does it count if I'm chuckling while I do it?

Let me be perfectly clear: I don't find it funny when Charlie's crying because he's in pain, or because he's lonely in the night, or because he's hungry and it's taken his bleary-eyed mother way too long to figure it out. I do, however, think it's kind of a riot when he objects with a bellow to sitting up to burp, to having his striped socks put on, to having his diaper removed and his wee shivering tackle exposed. I insist that it's funny when someone wearing alphabet pants is so mad he spits out his binky with an audible, disdainful ptui.

I’m pretty sure I'm not supposed to find my child's indignation amusing. As I understand it, the philosophy of attachment parenting has to do with respecting your baby as a person, recognizing his needs as valid and pressing, and honoring him as a human being. And I realize it's not especially respectful to want to smile when an angry infant in a rainbow onesie imperiously rejects his bottle because it’s not quiiiiiite warm enough.

But I do feel we embrace the more important tenets of attachment parenting. We don't leave Charlie alone to cry, except for the seventeen minutes between screaming and feeding when I absolutely must touch up my pedicure. (Kidding. KIDDING!) And we haven't attempted to put him on a schedule for our convenience, although I readily admit that the time when we first had him home, when he dependably woke at 4, 8, and 12, was the easiest time in this short but turbulent span of motherhood. We wear him and we hold him. (As for breastfeeding, which the estimable Dr. Sears suggests is instrumental in forming a strong mother/child relationship, well, I cordially invite the good doctor to suck my 9-ounce Avent.)

Now, I gather I'm supposed to do these things because I'm eager to show my baby that his parents are there for him at all times, that he can depend on us to meet his needs, that he is important in the world and immeasurably precious to us. But I wonder all the time whether the intent behind the actions matters. Does it still count as nurturing our attachment if the most immediate reason I'm doing it is that I don't want to hear the yelling?

…

Parenting philosophies, codified as such, leave me cold. I can't get interested in any formal school of thought about child-rearing. I am a seat-of-my-spit-upped-stretched-out-pants parent, obeying my instincts because I'm stripped down close to the bone and they're all I have right now. I am very much in the moment. I don’t have a coherent plan, and I don’t have a long-term goal. I can hardly remember my name, except for the wavering recollection that it's not pronounced the way you think, so you can be sure I don’t devote long hours to thoughtfully weighing this approach versus that.

The much-maligned Dr. Spock was known for reassuring anxious parents, "You know more than you think you do." I'm finding that’s largely true. I think the primary contribution made by Sears, Spock, and others — yes, even that odious Ezzo, who inspires in me thoughts of great violence — is to validate the instincts a parent already has. Of all the parents I know, not one to my knowledge has conducted a thorough, neutral survey of the parenting literature and accidentally fallen in thrall to a new and exciting approach they'd never considered. We seek reinforcement for what we already believe. We look for articulation of ideas and feelings we’ve only half-voiced ourselves. We welcome the relief of shorthand, being immediately understood when we tell other parents, "We do AP."

I have little use for the experts. I get much more comfort from the stories of other parents, especially those who admit they’ve made mistakes, yet whose kids are none the less loving or happy for it. I am learning that there are a million opportunities a day to make a bad decision, but also a million more to make up for it with a better one.

…

We don't co-sleep. We don’t breastfeed. I love the sling, but I love the stroller as much. When the time comes — and I am being purposely vague — we will likely try some of the gentler ways to encourage Charlie to sleep longer at night — and purposely vague again.

One of the tenets of the Sears' philosophy is that families should seek balance among the competing needs of everyone in the family. It is easy to read this as permission to weasel, to do as you please in the guise of meeting your own needs while still claiming AP status.

We can all rationalize whatever we want.

I don’t claim to be an attachment parent. Still, I generally feel that the way we approach Charlie — with a kind tone even when he’s at his worst, with a firm but loving touch when he needs to be soothed from screams — tells him all he needs to know right now about being respected and honored. I may not be thinking AP thoughts when I hustle down the hall in the middle of the night (unless "Gahhhhddamn it" counts), but then Charlie doesn't know what's in my heart as he hears my footsteps coming. He only knows I'm there.

And if he’s really lucky, maybe one day his asshole parents will stop dressing him like a clown, so no one will dare to laugh at him when he's just so righteously pissed.

Sad rabbit, bad habit

I am not ashamed to say I love Goodnight Moon. It's a sweet book, a lulling book, a gentle story with lovely illustrations. I read it to Charlie frequently. But there's something about it that bothers me. Something mysterious. Something...upsetting.

I approve of the other pictures in the room. Yes, yes, we like the cow jumping over the moon. All well and good. And the three little bears sitting on chairs? Fine, fine. Perfectly fine. But a rabbit. In hip waders. Fishing for another rabbit. Presumably using a fishhook?

That just doesn't seem right.

Once the full horror of a fly-fishing hare looking to snag itself a young'un had dawned on me, I scanned the book carefully for other hidden evils. You know, like maybe a pack of condoms carelessly left on the nightstand. A bong in pride of place on the mantelpiece. The face of evil peering out of the dollhouse. That kind of thing.

I was relieved when I found nothing — nothing, that is, but a clue.

On the bookcase behind the quiet old lady, I found a clue. Amid the well-ordered ranks of books I spied a copy of The Runaway Bunny, another children's classic penned by the same writer and illustrator as Goodnight Moon. Intrigued by this shout-out, I got all sleuthy with it and pulled out Charlie's copy.

I am here to tell you that that is one messed-up story.

It's all about a sad little bunny who wants to run away. He tells his mother so. Now some would have you believe that what follows is a testament to the comforting warmth and protection of a mother's enduring love. But others — okay, I — find the message a little, well, creepy. No matter how cleverly the bunny imagines eluding his mother, no matter what fanciful means of escape he conjures, she thwarts him by insisting that she will always find him. No matter what.

There is no escape, little rabbit.

Now, I know what the intended message is. The mother engages the young bunny's rebellious desire to be out on his own and assures him that she'll always be watching over him, no matter what. I understand that a child might find the story comforting — whatever you become, wherever you go, whatever choices you might make in your life (see condoms and bong above), your mother will love you. I know I'm reading the story through the eyes of a 21st-century smartass instead of the less cynical lens of the 1940s. I know.

But come on: "I will become a fish in a trout stream"? "I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you"?

Creepy.

Or is it just me? I don't exactly think like an uncorrupted child. I see weird things in just about every children's story. It's a bad habit. I know. I need to try harder.

I promise I will contemplate the error of my ways as I go back to paging peacefully through Goodnight Moon. And I will try very hard not to wonder what the old lady's knitting.

Charlie's drinking problem and other late-night thoughts

Yes, he has one. Just like Robert Hays in Airplane. He grips the bottle in his pudgy little fingers, pushes it out of his mouth, regards it for a moment, then pulls it back in. To his cheek, or his chin, or his nose, or anywhere else where he can't actually drink from it.

It was much funnier when he had a sucking problem (QuickTime, 3 MB, noisy), because then we could just watch the errant path of his fist and laugh. And plug in a pacifier if he got too desperate. Having Charlie help when he's starving and I'm trying to feed him at 2 in the morning really doesn't tickle my funnybone in quite the same way, although I realize it should.

At 2 in the afternoon, of course, I think it's hilarious. And in another couple of months, when he gets the coordination thing down and I can just toss him a bottle from the other side of the room to drink by himself, I'll think it's great.

Charlie and I are neither of us at our best in the wee hours of the morning. So as I listen to him yelling while he refuses to burp, try to rock him to sleep, or pat him in his crib in the vain hope that he will stay down this time, I try to think about something other than how many seconds until he goes to jail or college.

After the fourth or fifth variation on "but that's not important right now" my mind wanders to such observations as, "I never would have thought that having a kid would make my quadriceps hurt so much" or "I wonder whether my knees will hold out till Charlie starts walking." Or "Maybe if I were in an electric wheelchair I could drive to Kansas."

Then comes what passes for wordplay when one party hasn't learned to talk yet and the other is half asleep muttering under his breath. For the past couple of weeks I've been obsessing over what "Soddenfreude" would mean, if only it were a word. I like to think that it describes the happy feeling that makes Charlie smile and kick his legs when I remove a pound and a half of diaper with its magic moisture-absorbent crystals loaded to the brim. Julie says no, it's the happy feeling I get watching Charlie fill his pants while she's feeding him, and knowing that I don't have to clean up the resulting carnage.