Advice

Some advice seems unnecessary, such as, "Never hold a full baby over your head and shake it. “ Yet, surprisingly, some new parents still do it as if the laws of physics, reverse peristalsis, and gravity do not apply to babies. Are they in for some surprises! Perhaps we ought not to blame the parents, for who can resist a baby, fall or otherwise, and what else can you do with the little bundles of Joy apart from shake them and throw them into the air in the hope of catching them before they hit the floor?

 The problem with babies is that they develop their sense of humour very early in their lives. This is particularly true for babies that are raised by their parents, but markedly less so for babies consigned to the care of fall time nannies, for in these melancholy cases it is evident that the sense of humour is often misplaced altogether, or else it is substituted by stratagems that will help the poor mites survive the inevitable maternal deprivation that follows this form of parental abandonment.

Children raised normally, that is in a proper family with two loving, selfless, and well-balanced parents, are set fair to enjoy life and to relish the interplay between themselves and one or both parents and any siblings who will pay them attention. This attention is always rewarding, for what can bring greater joy to the heart than having a baby smile at you with every muscle in its little face in a fullness of trust and confidence. 

For some inexplicable reason, some babies find the acute discomfort of their adult attendants to be worth gleeful belly laughs that grow yet louder and wilder with each successive disaster that befalls the hapless parent. In such cases, it is useless to permit one's dignity to be bent or event slightly dented, for all such theatricality is lost on the mewing infant who is charmed to a degree in inverse proportion to the humiliation concomitant upon your natural disasters.

Another piece of unavailing advice is "Never lean over a full baby and tickle it vigorously unless you really want a first-class exhibition of industrial strength projective vomiting!” All babies share the motto, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again!" and if you have played fast and loose with babies' giggle points, they will get you eventually, and the longer they have to wait, the greater the enjoyment they derive from it.

Even innocent amusements are not what they seem for babies are capable of the most condign acts of insult against fawning parents, especially when parents vainly imagine that they know all about the little strangers who have come to reign over their once tranquil homes. Take the case of Baby X who lived with his doting genitors, and had done so happily for some merry months. He seemed placid and easy to please, for he had slept through the night every night after his first week of life, and he took his food easily and quickly.

He was an uncomplaining baby who smiled vacantly at everyone who took the trouble to look him in the eye and utter the usual inanities that make as much sense to babies, as do Shakespeare's sonnets. When big people grinned close to him, searing them with their garlic- laden breath, he smiled, and when they picked up his rattle and shook it ferociously in his little ear, almost sending him into a frenzy as he sought to escape without means of locomotion, he smiled. His smiles were expansive, enthusiastic, and convincing, but underneath his apparently placid and pleasured exterior, dark forces were hatching sinister reprisal.

Psychologists have spent many years trying to probe the complexities of the mind of the human infant in order to understand their mental and developmental processes, but their findings are, at best, no more than wild guesses in which every experienced parent contiguously sees the fatal flaws.

The expression, "As innocent as a baby" has a hollow ring to parents who have been put to the test by their neonates, and every multipartite knows better than to trust the innocence of any of their little babes any further than they can heave their overdraft. Babies only look innocent, and the truth of that was sent home in a direct message when one mother, who asks to remain anonymous so that the publicity does not ruin what is left of her dignity and poise, undertook a simple task that she had done so many times without incident. That's the chilling thing about babies: they wait for the moment!

Who has not changed the baby's nappy with song in their heart, and a smile on their face, and prattled nonsense at their young charge whilst doing so? Nothing hazardous about that, you will agree, but ... thereby hangs a tale.

Whether the indulgent matriarch had inadvertently given her darling boy a bottle of milk that was too warm, or burped him a little too vigorously, or scratched his tender botty with her neatly trimmed short fingernails, or if some other calamity had befallen, we know not. Yet something deep in the id of her chuckling boy was disturbed to the degree that tangible remonstrance was obligatory.

As paediatricians and child psychologists will explain, for a stiff fee, the advantages of being small and helpless are few, as this particular baby knew without either being told or spending a fortune it had not yet had time to amass. His options were extremely limited, for he could not vocalise his expostulation. Nor could he reach his mother to pinch or nip her in an infantile act of retribution. He did not know the naughty words that older children and adult employ to sear the ears of their offenders, and could not wait until he had more useful attributes, for he held little in his memory and his id knew that and prepared, as ids do, something immediate, quite nasty, and out of all proportion to the transgression.

Mother undid the overloaded nappy, cooing softly, "We 'II soon have you clean and comfy, my little darling boy.” The diminutive person looked her straight in the eye, this time with no trace of a smile. The scene was, however, idyllic. The soft tidy room with the bright summer sun streaming in at the window could have been taken straight from the pages of "Mother and Child" magazine. In another room, a radio was playing Liszt's Les Preludes, the ambience of the place was gentle and relaxed, full of that kind of pure love that makes the world go round, and life worth living.

Baby was studying mother intently with the profundity that wells up from years of collected wisdom or, as in this case, from the engines of necessity. Baby was working mother. Mother was letting baby kick and enjoy the cool freedom that lies between nappies. Seeing her infant unsmiling, she automatically set about bringing a smile to the face of her sunny son, by bending forward to let him focus on her face and eyes. Bay was still working mother. Still no smile. 

Not to be beaten by her offspring, mother leaned a little closer and looked intently into his big brown eyes. He looked right back at her, maintaining unblinking eye contact. "Not yet!" commanded the seething id. Baby held back, his restrain was admirable. Mother began to make noises that have no written form, but with which you will not be unfamiliar. Then, "Ah!" she said, opening her mouth wider. "NOW!" screamed the id, and baby made a perfect fountain, issuing a warm amber stream directly into his mother's open mouth.

Who would believe that a little innocent baby could work out the trigonometrical triangulation for such a complex trajectory, never having had an arithmetic lesson in his life? What else babies may be capable of, we do not and might never know. My policy is never to put them to the test, and to limit the amount of naked freedom between soiled and fresh nappies with a suitably waterproof shield rapidly applied before the alien being has chance to work something out.

You know it makes sense.