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Man vs. Baby Page 14
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Page 14
Really? A souvenir?
I understand keeping a lock of hair, or even a first tooth, but I’ve never seen one of those beautiful, shabby-chic keepsake boxes with lovely, scrolly writing on the front that reads: UMBILICAL STUMP. Sorry if you’ve got one of these things in a shoebox or a jar of formaldehyde in the cellar, but unless you happen to be an avid collector of scabs and other necrotizing dead flesh, I’d trash it. It’s weird.
The only other piece of significant parenting advice with regard to bathing our baby was this: “Clean thoroughly”—advice that I thought lacked the necessary detail to tackle a soap-coated baby who is pretty adamant about not being “cleaned thoroughly.” A task that, you would have thought Barbara might have mentioned, can be like wrestling a pissed-off alligator that’s been coated in butter.
So even if you’ve got your baby in an overpriced bucket, filled to a depth of a perfect five inches and at a temperature of a balmy 98.6 degrees, the cleaning bit is easier said than done.
Charlie likes to splash. A lot. Consequently, one of the drawbacks of bathing him is that whoever is responsible often ends up drenched. When he was tiny, so long as you remembered to roll up your sleeves, the chances were you could avoid getting wet at all. (Maybe you would get a little damp at the edges of your rolled-up cuffs as you gently cradled his head.) But then Charlie reached the age where being in the bath became something exciting and splashtastic, and since that point there has often been no way to avoid getting soaked. Rolling up your sleeves is an exercise in futility (it’s like walking into a collapsing building and pausing for a moment to put a bobble hat on). Now, if the mood takes Charlie, whoever’s turn it is to bathe him walks out of the room looking like they’ve just been at sea in a storm and had to tether themselves to the ship’s wheel to prevent getting tossed overboard.
But that’s nothing. The moment you try to get him clean or produce a washcloth, he unleashes a tempest and thrashes around like someone has just dropped an electrical appliance into the bath or he’s being pulled under by Jaws.
It’s even worse when he’s tired. If you fancy a challenge, try getting some lovely stock photos of foamy-splishy-splashy time when you’re handling a soap-covered baby who is overtired and furious that play has been interrupted for cleaning time. (We’ve got a couple of snaps, but they’re blurred by water spray and out of focus and it’s hard to make out whether we’re bathing a baby or fighting off a kraken.)
Actually, maybe the woman who bathes her spider monkey once a week is onto something. . . .
Towel
Finally, the last segment of the lesson, the final “T”: Towel. There wasn’t much to this bit of the lesson either. It consisted of: dry your infant thoroughly, keep him warm. Oh, and use a hooded towel. Because, for some reason, after every bath you have to dress your baby as Emperor Palpatine.
So, that’s roughly how to bathe a baby and keep him clean. But it’s not the only way you can keep your offspring from looking like a twelfth-century cave dweller.
FINGERNAILS
After bathtime is a good time to tackle fingernails. When we first left the hospital, we were given a little starter kit by friends who had recently had a baby of their own. It had all the essentials: a first baby romper, a first bib, a little hat and bootees—and also a full miniature nail kit with nail clippers and a file. I thought it a bit odd at the time, a manicure kit for a baby. I mean, how often could you possibly need to trim a baby’s fingernails? Answer: constantly.
You know how fast Wolverine deploys his claws? That’s basically the same speed that a baby’s fingernails grow. You can cut them, file them, angle-grind them: turn your back for five minutes, turn back again, and there your little one is—a mini Edward Scissorhands, lying in his crib and raking his own face until he looks like one of the Cenobites from Hellraiser.
And this is the problem: the speed at which newborn babies’ nails grow wouldn’t be such a great issue if clawing at themselves wasn’t their favorite hobby.
In the first few months of Charlie’s life, I’m sure our health visitor was beginning to think that, in between her visits, we were entering him into underground knife fights. Every time she asked how things were going and we replied that everything was fine, I kept waiting for her follow-up question to be: “Really? So, how come he looks like you’ve locked him in a cupboard with a fucking puma?”
What she did say was that, in fact, it was really common. Babies like to scratch themselves—they just do. And she suggested a few solutions. We tried “scratch mitts,” but there was more chance of keeping a pair of sunglasses on Voldemort. And we tried rolling his sleeves over his hands, but he really hated not being able to put his fingers and thumb to his mouth. In the end, all we could do was try to keep his nails under control: trimmed, filed, and a little less like the talons of a striking owl.
While trying to find a solution, I saw some pretty bad examples of self-inflicted scratching online; at its worst, it looks like a baby’s been wearing the scratchy hat that the Romans made Jesus wear. Also, because a baby’s skin is so delicate, even the lightest of scuffs and scratches can look neglectful. But for us, and for most new parents who have this issue, I think the problem is something like the opposite of neglect. To begin with, we failed to cut Charlie’s nails adequately, not because we didn’t care but because we were worried about hurting him.
His fingers were so small, it felt as though the miniature clippers in our hands were a gleaming machete. The slightest slip, and he could potentially lose a finger or an arm. Trying to clip these teeny-tiny fingernails is like snipping the wires on a bomb. It’s stressful and detailed, and the entire time you’re waiting for the moment you fuck up, when you snip into baby finger rather than baby nail and blood starts to spray up the walls.
I know that this is all dribblingly crazy—I’ve never heard of anyone who has hacked off one of their kiddy’s fingers while giving them a manicure. But when you’re a new, inexperienced, and clueless parent, sharp stuff near your baby is alarming and viscerally unwelcome and any danger is exaggerated tenfold. It’s the same reason we haven’t given our little boy his first haircut, because that would mean bringing him within three feet of scissors. (And that’s despite the fact that he has a blond nest at the front and a rampant mullet at the back. He looks like a redneck Boris Johnson. . . . Now, that’s neglect.)
Over the last few months, I’ve actually got quite good at clipping Charlie’s nails. Maybe because he’s older, it’s a bit easier, simply because his fingers and fingernails are bigger. And maybe practice just makes perfect. Whatever the case, I’ve not hurt him yet, so it’s probably true to say that fear of doing so was just a new parent’s dim paranoia.
Just a word on toenails: they are almost as bad. In fact, in some ways they’re worse because you don’t notice them as frequently. Also, they seem to grow in spurts, so they can get quite long before you suddenly realize you’ve been ignoring them. We didn’t cut Charlie’s for a while, and they ended up a bit longer than you would probably want. But I think other parents must make the same mistake. Because a few weeks ago I took him to a soft-play area in our village, and noticed that the kids without socks on had similarly long toenails. One kid was making a skittering sound, like a dog that hadn’t been walked in years. Charlie’s weren’t good, but you could have hung this kid from the rafters like a bat.
COLDS, COUGHS, AND SNIFFLES
It seems a really obvious thing to say, but the worst thing about a baby being unwell is the simple fact that it makes him unhappy. And when babies first become ill, it is one of those times that you really notice that as parents your happiness is now contingent upon their happiness. That you would now give anything to take the misery that they are feeling and wear it for them. To make matters worse, babies are unable to tell you how they feel, what hurts most and where. And you in turn are unable to comfort them in the most important of ways: which is to let them know that the way they feel is temporary and it will all be okay again soon
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But one thing all new parents have to get used to is dealing with the colds, coughs, sniffles, and low-level illnesses that afflict a creature who has a secondhand immune system. I say secondhand, because most of a baby’s immunity comes from its mom. A baby’s own immune system is about as effective as a missile defense shield made of Pringles. It’s why kids always seem to have a perma-cold, always seem to be watery-eyed and blowing snot bubbles the size of an astronaut’s helmet.
A kid with a cold is pretty disgusting. The hagfish defends itself against predators by producing its own body weight in slime, and once a baby’s nose starts streaming the Day-Glo gunk of a cold (to add to all the other fluids they produce), it’s much more like dealing with a threatened hagfish than a human.
And when a baby is not blowing snot bubbles, or creating gluey strands of the stuff that stretch like pizza cheese between your shoulder and his face, he is cultivating solid boogers so big it is almost as though the baby has been built around them, rather than the other way round.
One thing that came as a surprise to me was the fact that babies can’t blow their own noses. I don’t mean excusing themselves and drawing a handkerchief from a breast pocket, I mean snorting outward. They can’t do it.
So it becomes your job to dislodge and remove the stuff that is causing any blockage in their nasal passages. One more disgusting job to add to all the other disgusting jobs that are now your responsibility (responsibilities that if you were told they would be yours in a job interview, you would punch the interviewer in the face).
Amazingly, there are tools to help you perform this task. There are various types. There is one that you hook up to a vacuum cleaner. Another that consists of a clear plastic tube that you stick up your baby’s nose and then suck on the other end, siphoning snot from your baby like you’re stealing gas from a parked car. There are others, but we use one called a “nasal aspirator.” It’s quite difficult to describe what it is, but it’s basically a rubber bulb with a plastic tip on the end. You squeeze the bulb and then stick it up the baby’s nose, and as you release your grip it’s supposed to use suction (like a plunger) to draw the blockage out.
(Again, maybe it’s a new parent’s paranoia, but to begin with I was worried that if I allowed the thing to suck too hard, or put it too far up his nose, I might create some perfect vacuum and suck out Charlie’s brains.)
Once you get the hang of it, it’s a bit like fishing. And it’s horribly satisfying when you snag a monster. I once latched onto something that felt like it was a carrot stick or piece of Lego, only to discover the largest booger ever created. This thing was roughly the same size as the asteroid that Bruce Willis landed on in Armageddon. And it fought. It fought hard. This was Moby Dick to my Captain Ahab. And when I landed it, I even saved it to show Lyns. But she just patted me on the shoulder, told me to go and have a pint and get out of the house for a while.I
The cold virus is one of nature’s greatest success stories, designed to spread itself with incredible efficiency. And there is no greater agent of spread than a baby, who coughs and splutters like a germy lawn sprinkler, without regard for who is in the vicinity. Babies don’t cover their noses when they sneeze or put their hands to their mouths when they are cough-hacking away like a two-pack-a-day truck driver. This is how the perma-cold is passed around the household like in a game of tag. Because, with a lack of sleep and poor diet, there is no defense for the parent either, and misery descends on all. Not least because it fucks up the progress you were making with “the routine.”
Apart from general misery, this is the main problem with coughs and colds: the interruption to a routine you were slowly creating the way you were told to. Feeding your infant and putting her to bed at a certain time goes out the bedroom window. Just when she was starting to show signs of “sleeping through,” she is now stirring as frequently as she ever did. Even if she does sleep an Infants’ Tylenol–induced few hours, your own sleep quota is once more back to those first few weeks, when you could not close your eyes for worry. We are returned to those terrifying early days when the baby stops audibly breathing for what seems to be hours. When a breath in is followed by a breath out, but not necessarily in that order and with stretched time between the two. Even if you are able to sleep through the worry, it’s unlikely you can sleep through the noise, as you are now sharing a sleeping area with a coughing, wheezing baby with a blocked nose that sounds like an accordion getting dry-humped.
As far as the low-level illnesses that afflict a baby go, it’s not just the colds, sniffles, and coughs that parents have to deal with. There are the fevers, the cradle cap, the diaper rash that looks like radiation burn, the side effects of teething, and all the other miscellaneous spots and rashes that are all meningitis until Googled not to be. All these unwelcome symptoms provide a source of anxiety and concern that add to a new parent’s gray hair and bubbling blood pressure. But, thankfully, there is a means of defense against some of the more serious stuff.
IMMUNIZATIONS
This is tough.
Just when you have built up a modicum of trust between you and your offspring, you have to destroy it all by holding them still while a stranger jabs them in the leg with a sharp stick.
I was responsible for taking Charlie to get his vaccinations (Lyns is terrified of needles and has been known to pass out at the sight of someone sewing). As a parent, I found it to be one of the hardest things I’ve had to do so far. As Charlie felt the nip of the injection, his bottom lip trembled, and as he geared up to scream he delayed for a moment. Just long enough to look me in the eye with the disappointment of a thing betrayed. Et tu, Brute?
I completely understand why parents are put off going through this ordeal. But it’s not really an ordeal, apart from the rare instances of allergy and reactions. For the most part, babies cry for a bit, and then they see a bug on the wall or a leaf and forget the whole thing. Or maybe, as in Charlie’s case, they have a fever and feel under the weather for a day or two. But, on the whole, the only damage done is to the parents, who convince themselves that they have performed some sort of treachery.
Unfortunately, what puts some parents off having the vaccinations isn’t the guilt at causing a moment of pain or a couple of days of fever. It is more likely to be the link between immunizations and the onset of autism or other serious disorders. And, as far as this is concerned, I would say it’s best not to worry about it. Because there isn’t a link. At all. Not one.
What there is, is some discredited, shitty research that has proven to be fraudulent. And a vast amount of excellent research showing that, in fact, there is no more a scientific link between vaccinations and autism than there is between eating Cinnabons and going cross-eyed. No link. At all.
Now, you may be reading this thinking: What do you know? The one thing we’ve established reading this book is that you’re something of an idiot. And that’s true. But the overwhelming majority of scientists and doctors contend that vaccinations save lives and are not dangerous. As Jimmy Kimmel once said, when it comes to vaccinations: “If you really believe that 99 percent of doctors are dishonest, you need to see a doctor.”
But choosing to vaccinate their child is a decision that every parent must make. And, in fairness, there are still some proponents of the opposing view, people who argue that vaccinations are fundamentally dangerous. These people are called “anti-vaxxers.”
So, in the interests of balance, these are some of the esteemed researchers and proponents on each side of this controversial debate.
On one side, proposing that vaccinations are overwhelmingly safe, are:
• The World Health Organization
• The United Nations
• The Centers for Disease Control (US)
• The National Health Service (UK)
• The General Medical Council (UK)
• The British Medical Association
• The American Medical Association
• The American Academy of
Pediatrics
On the other side of the debate are:
• A man who thought he was the son of God, but now believes that the Royal Family are Lizard People: David Icke
• Boko Haram
• Star of Scary Movie 3: Jenny McCarthy
• The Taliban
• And, finally, a man famous for being a racist, backward man-child and having hair like someone has back-combed Bigfoot’s asshole: Donald Trump
PERSPECTIVE
When we’re dragging ourselves grumpily out of bed at 4 a.m. to deal with a sniffly baby, it can test the patience of all of us. Fortunately, 99.9 percent of the time these illnesses are nothing to worry about and it becomes routine. And immunizations can prevent some of the more serious illnesses—but, unfortunately, not all of them.
So at those moments in the middle of a long night when Charlie is unwell, unsettled, and murdering sleep with greater fury than ever, I try to remind myself of those parents who have to deal with genuine sickness in their children. Parents who would saw themselves in two for a baby that merely woke them at 4 a.m. with a lousy bloody cold, rather than with a genuine illness that can’t be nose-wiped away. I try to remind myself how incredibly fortunate we are that Charlie is healthy and well.
I try to remind myself of those poor, desperate parents. But usually I don’t succeed. And if I’m woken up at 4 a.m. tomorrow night by a snuffly baby, I’ll probably be complaining under my breath again. Because perspective is a slippery thing. And maybe in this regard, its slipperiness has a purpose. Since to regard our little ones as that fragile is too much of a shitty nightmare to think too hard about.
(For what it’s worth, for those of you reading this who have confronted or continue to cope with the nightmare of a genuinely sick baby, I send you my small family’s love and admiration, and I promise to try harder to not be quite such a whiny dick.)