I've Been Downsized
My job has been outsourced.My position has been eliminated.
My services are no longer required.
I've had an involuntary separation...
...from the job of feeding my daughter.
It seems like only a few months ago (because it was only a few months ago) that my daughter started eating solid foods. (See "What a Mess!") My favorite thing about my daughter's gastronomic milestone was the extra bonding time that we enjoyed while I scooped heaping spoonfuls of bland mush, and eventually chunky fruit or vegetable medleys, into her eager mouth.
But, those days are gone now.
Recently, my wife and I were excited to help our daughter start feeding herself. While she hasn't quite mastered the fork and knife yet (or the spoon, for that matter) she has really taken to shoving pieces of whatever food we put in front of her into her mouth herself.
At first, we started with "puffs", bite-size puffed fruit rings that make a great first finger food because they dissolve in your child's mouth meaning less choking hazards than can be associated with my generation's first finger food: Cheerios. Eventually, we made it all the way up to banana chunks, whole peas and corn, and even little pastas.
Last week, we reached the Holy Grail of child-feeding: Having our daughter eat the same food as us, a milestone that marked the day we could stop buying/making a separate meal for our daughter, and just feeding her bite-sized versions of what we were having, resulting in a slight, but much appreciated, cost savings. She was even able to eat a deconstructed rice and bean burrito from Chipotle, and an all veggie roll from our favorite sushi restaurant!
Whatever finger food was placed in front of our daughter she would happily eat, smiling and laughing at herself. (And, making a huge mess!)
Unfortunately, there was an unexpected consequence from allowing our daughter to find the joy in feeding herself...now, she ONLY wants to feed herself. This would be fine with me if we were always in a place or situation that allowed me to sprawl out a place mat and let my daughter make a mess, feeding herself, for about an hour, but that isn't always the case.
I first noticed the uprising a few weeks ago when, while feeding my daughter some applesauce for breakfast, she thought it would be a fun idea to blow a raspberry at me with a mouthful of food. I, however, didn't find it as amusing. At the time, I assumed she was just playing around, so I blew it off as her being silly, cleaned the both of us up, and got into a raspberry war with her before leaving for work.
But, it didn't stop.
As the days went by, she went from blowing mouthfuls of food at me, via raspberry distribution, to completely twisting herself around in her high chair to avoid a spoonful of food. At first, when she started avoiding her food so fervently, I assumed that she wasn't hungry and let her down to play, only for her to be fussy a half hour later. Eventually, I figured out that she was still hungry, so instead of ending the meal when she was avoiding my spoon, I gave her some puffs, raisins, or banana pieces, which she greedily shoveled into her mouth.
Apparently, it was me. It wasn't that she wasn't hungry, she just didn't want me to feed her anymore. How sad!
Over the last few days, I've come to terms with the fact that my daughter doesn't need me to feed her anymore. I'm sure it won't be the last time that she decides that she "doesn't need me" to help her with something.
So, for now, I'll take my pink slip, clean up my resume, and start looking for another job that I can help my daughter before my next "career change opportunity".
I'm Not A Pedophile, I'm A Parent!
The other day, while eating lunch by myself in the food court of our local mall (not normally something I do, but I had missed a lunch meeting nearby and had a craving for Rubio's,) I was "people-watching" while I ate.
As I was looking around at the many families with small children that tend to occupy the mall in the middle of the day on a weekday, a woman pushed an infant carrier/stroller over to the table next to me, sat down, and started playing with her baby.
Now, since becoming a parent last year, I have noticed two things about babies/children in public:
1) They seem to be everywhere now, as if they weren't before. It seems to be the same effect that happens as soon as you buy a "unique" car, thinking that you don't see many on the road, only to find that every other car on the road is the same as yours.
2) I like them a lot more than before. Prior to parenthood, I had no emotion toward babies or children. It wasn't that I didn't like them, or dislike them, it was just that I was "baby neutral" without feelings in either direction toward them. Now, it's as if a switch was flipped in my head, and I find children facinating to watch, not in a weird way, but in awe of how amazing children and babies really are.
And, as I have learned is common practice in the parenting world when someone pushes a stroller by you, whether out of legitimate interest or to secretly compare how cute someone else's child is versus our own, it is normal to look at the baby inside of the stroller.
So, as the woman sat down next to me, I looked over at the baby in the stroller that had just rolled by me. When I saw that the baby inside was a cute (but not as cute as my own) little girl, of about six to eight weeks, I smiled.
Unfortunately, it seems, my innocent gesture was misconstrued by the new mother who, upon catching my gaze while I smiled at her daughter, immediately turned the stroller so that her baby was not facing me, as a look of concern swept across her face.
Uh...what just happened?
Did I somehow offend her by smiling at her child? (Or was it that she had somehow read my mind to discover that I thought my daughter was cuter than hers?) What exactly did she think I was thinking? Would her reaction have been the same had I not been alone? Did I not get the memo that said smiling at babies isn't ok anymore?
Now, I'm not the best person to talk to about parent-to-parent etiquette. When someone, holding a baby of their own, tells me how beautiful my daughter is I simply say "thank you" and go about whatever I was doing, without complimenting them on their child (that they seemed to be fishing for compliments for.) When the same parent tries to continue the conversation with me by asking how old my daughter is, I tell them her age, and continue about my way, not asking the age of their child. (Mostly, because I really don't care.)
My wife has scolded me on several occasions for my parental etiquette "faux pas", and reminds me that the polite thing to do is to ask about the other person's child. (Even if I really don't care how old their kid is!)
However, the one bit of parental etiquette that I do know and follow is that it is polite to smile at children, especially if they smile at you first, and if the occasion permits it, one can even wave or make a face at the child.
But, maybe I am wrong.
Being a new parent myself, I know all too well the paranoia that comes with the territory. And, every news story of an abducted child, or my personal (least) favorite: stories about people using information and pictures of children found on people's Facebook pages to do everything from cyber-stalking to adoption scams, all seem to provide the justification to treat every "stranger" as a potential threat.
Furthermore, I can appreciate that a lone man (albeit, a well-dressed and clean-cut man) can be viewed as a potential "weirdo", so maybe I'm just offended that someone would react that way to me, a father, smiling at a baby.
Was I in the wrong there? Did the mom overreact, or am I the one being ridiculous? Should I keep my eyes to myself when I'm by myself, unless accompanied by my wife or daughter?
When Do I Count The Milestones?
In one of my first posts, "Everything I Ever Knew About Childbirth Was A Lie", I wrote (somewhat dramatically) about the fact that the entire process leading up to and through childbirth was nothing like I had been led to believe, by years of watching movies. A woman's water doesn't always break, there isn't always a mad dash to the hospital, in most cases the baby doesn't come out within five minutes of arrival at the hospital, and in no case does the baby come out looking clean and smiling.Yet, nine months later (holy crap!) I feel like making another overly dramatic assertion, in that everything I ever knew about baby "firsts" was a lie.
Whenever a baby's first crawl, steps, or words are shown during the touching moments of a sitcom or even a television commercial, they are always shown as true "firsts" where the child gets up on their own and starts walking to his mother without assistance for the very first time, or a little girl looks up at her father and says "daddy" while making eye contact with him and maybe even pointing at him.
Well, maybe my kid is broken because none of her milestones have been as easily identifiable as either of those scenarios.
In my post last week, "One Must Learn To Crawl Before...Never Mind", I wrote about the fact that my daughter learned how to "walk" before she figured out how to crawl. But, that experience left me with questions regarding when her true milestone should be recorded.
What should I consider her first step? Is it when she sideways-scooted across the couch, or will it be when she finally steps away from the couch and walks on her own? Can I say that she is walking, or do I have to add the qualifier "while holding onto things" whenever I tell people about her mobility?
We have a "Baby's First Year" calendar in our daughter's room, with stickers for each milestone to be placed on the day they were achieved, and I only have one "First Step" sticker. There is no "First Step While Holding Onto The Couch" sticker.
Likewise, several months ago my daughter increased her vocabulary by adding the consonants b, g, d, and m to the vowels that she had previously mastered. This meant that she could (and would, at great length and loud volume) say "dada", "mama", "baba", and my personal favorite merely for the cute factor: "goo". (Although, she seems to prefer blowing "raspberries" rather than talking.)
However, just because she could say those words, doesn't necessarily mean that she knows what they mean. Mostly, she just strings the sounds together in a long chain like "mamamamamamamamamamamama" while she is playing. On one occasion, I thought that she had actually said "dada" in reference to me while I had my back to her, but when I turned around I found her playing with a dog toy instead.
So, do I count it? Was "dada" her first word, even if it was in reference to a Kong ball? Or, do I have to wait until she uses the word in proper reference to what she is trying to say? I'd love to check off another milestone on her list, but the latter method seems like it is going to take a while. (Especially considering my friends with 13 month-old twins who refer to their dad as "mama".)
I'm sure I'm being more neurotic about this than I should be, that I should be enjoying my daughter's new skills instead of dwelling on when she officially gained them...but this is who I am, dammit!
If someone could explain this one to me, I would really appreciate it!
