Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #11: Hiking

It took longer for the leaves to change this year because the world is ending, meaning there was still opportunity to see them in mid-November! So the family made the fifteen-minute drive to Wildwood State Park, and for the first ten minutes of our hike through the woods, everyone enjoyed leaf-centric banter, walked with the legs attached to their bodies, and complained only lightly.

Wildwood State Park

The remainder of the hike didn't go as well, mostly because Miranda decided she was tired, first of walking and then, incredibly, of being carried. We debated turning around until we reached the exact place where it was a thirty-five minute walk in either direction, and this is when Miranda entered some sort of Memento loop wherein she only understood the following three things:

1) I'm tired of walking.
2) I'm tired of being carried.
3) Are we going to Grandma's house?

I addressed these, relentlessly, as follows:

1) Everyone else is walking.
2) Nobody else is being carried.
3) We're going to Grandma's house in ten days.

To which Miranda replied, earnestly, as though we might not know, and it was important that we truly understand:

1) I'm tired of walking.
2) I'm tired of being carried.
3) Are we going to Grandma's house?

Then the woodlands of Eastern Long Island transformed into a sort of Euro discotheque, wherein Miranda, in my arms, jamming a "pink" (red) leaf into my nostrils, mixed the order, sometimes lingering on 3) up to five times in a row (Grandma-Grandma-Grandma-Grandma-Grandma) before spinning a few 1) or tossing in 2) to keep us all on our toes. Her toes were in the air.

Miranda "hiking"
Finally, after a couple of miles, Miranda spotted a playground, which she legit sprinted to with newfound reserves of energy. She left maybe thirty minutes later, aggressively crying, because she both wanted to stay and leave. Her teenage years should be FINE. The rest of the day she forgot about being tired and only mentioned Grandma's house six or seven hundred thousand times.

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #10: Driving

My daughter doesn't like driving, or perhaps it's more accurate to say--since she's only eleven months old--that she doesn't like being driven. When my son was younger, he didn't like being driven either, which I covered previously (search: "vomits" and "sanity"). Now that he's almost four, he likes driving fine; it's everything else that fills him with the abiding unhappiness of a nineteenth century Russian novelist.

But back to my daughter, who really hates being driven! My wife and I have sensitively adjusted to this condition by repeatedly placing her in a rear-facing car seat and taking her on long drives in the middle of the day. Recently, we drove the whole family to Charlottesville, Virginia, which is one of the most wonderful places on earth if you don't have children or a debilitating illness courtesy of those children.

That's right, my daughter is already vengeful. Is she aware of her vengefulness? She might be. Her favorite word is "no," which she understands to mean "sure!" She happily shakes her head when you tell her no before resuming whatever she was doing, such as swallowing a nightlight. In the restraints of the carseat, there is little she can do, so she responds by crying or screaming or a sort of crying-screaming hybrid that sounds almost like laughter. She insists I hold her hand, difficult though not impossible as that may be while operating a moving vehicle. I thought that the fourteen-hour roundtrip drive might cure my daughter of her driving hatred, but it seems only to have reenforced it.

Just kidding, I never thought it would get better! Really, I didn't think anything at all. When more than one person in Charlottesville asked me what our plan was for the ride home, I started laughing or maybe crying-screaming. You have to understand I was very ill. At one point, on Route 29, my wife, son, and daughter were all asleep. The Blue Ridge Mountains rose to my left, and hills rolled gently into fast food restaurants and gas stations to my right. I thought: This isn't so bad. And it wasn't. Then somebody or everybody started crying, and I thought: This is very bad! Then I forgot, which is the only thing you can do.

Asleep... for now.

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #9: Eating

Everyone said Miranda looked like James when she was born, which makes sense since they were both enormous. Now that Miranda has thinned to a svelte young woman, it's easier to see all the ways in which they're different. For instance, Miranda sleeps at night! (James only began sleeping at night in January, and he's still not exactly maintaining a regular schedule: Despite no longer napping, he's presently [4:00 pm] passed out in front of the television, as "No Signal!" bounces around the blue screen.) Also: Miranda doesn't take a bottle, which means she eats ALL DAY LONG. Here's a comprehensive list of the things Miranda does besides eat and sleep:

1) Smile because she's going to the bathroom
2) Smile because she's surreptitiously going to the bathroom, though you think she's smiling at you

That's it! That's the list.

Miranda's non-stop eating has been hard on my wife, since she's breakfast, lunch, dinner, fourth meal (copyright: Taco Bell), brunch, snack, nightcap, etc. My wife has responded to her new role admirably, feeding on demand, while simultaneously moving several thousand photos from one computer to another and watching whole seasons of previously unheard-of shows on Netflix. James has also risen to the occasion, showering his sister with generous affection, though his three-year-old ego is now so fragile he has a complete breakdown if even the slightest thing doesn't go his way. Ketchup on his face, for instance, is a crisis. Another crisis would be removing ketchup from his face. James has developed a nearly erotic attachment to the itsy bitsy spider, which is the last thing he thinks of before sleeping and first thing he thinks of upon waking. He sings the nursery rhyme on unending loop and looks for the spider in every drainpipe. A typical summer afternoon consists of James running around the living room screaming DOWN CAME THE RAIN while my wife feeds Miranda and I look for my wife's phone, which is invariably next to her, usually physically touching her.

Smiling?

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Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #8: The Dentist

Poor James had a mouthful of cavities despite never eating sweets and only possessing teeth for a few months. The main culprit, Ericka and I concluded, were the several gallons of milk he drinks a day. So now we thoroughly brush his teeth before bed and allow him no more than two gallons of milk a day. It's called parenting.

James wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything before his 9:00 am pediatric dental appointment, and this was my biggest fear, as he knocks back milk, oatmeal, and yogurt long before the sun rises each morning. At 4:00 am, James sprinted into our bedroom and immediately commenced a list of horrifying demands: "Milk dinner bagel yummy. Dada, I NEED this. HUNGRY." In James's defense, he has consumed milk upon waking every day of his life; my offer of water was dismissed with a combination of crying and angrier crying. Rarely have I seen anyone more disappointed by anything than James and the sippy cup of water. He would have traded me on the spot for eight ounces of milk. This is not hyperbole. He might have done it for four.

At the dentist's office, James got intoxicated for the first time, though unfortunately for James it was a baby sedative. His reaction was a little funny, but mostly it was sad. He tried to flirt with another kid, but he couldn't walk. The waiting room was like a bar full of toddlers. We then received a guided tour of his house of horrors complete with the usual spears and razors, as well as a baby-sized straitjacket. I was thumbing the Velcro of the latter when we received the unexpected news that we wouldn't be allowed to sit with him during his session. Instead, we sat directly outside the room to listen to him scream. I suggested coffee. Ericka looked ready to cry.

In recovery, James was already developing a hangover. Things, his droopy eyes seemed to suggest, would not be the same between us. I hadn't seen that look since his circumcision, but he had no idea who I was then. I tried to explain. He was pretty droopy for the rest of the day. He has to go back for two more cavities, but I'm not sure who is volunteering for this mission, perhaps one of the grandmothers, perhaps somebody who owes us a huge favor or several thousand dollars. Very soon James will lose all of these teeth and grow new ones.

Sedated James playing with new dinosaur finger puppet from dentist.

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #7: End of Roadtrip

Nobody asked James if he wanted to go on a two-and-a-half-week road trip, which is probably for the best because if he were asked, the answer unambiguously would have been "no." Since the only words James knows are "mamamamamamama" and "ohohohohoh" (as sung to the New Kids on the Block's "The Right Stuff"), he responded to this unasked question in the method he knows best: puking all over everything in the car.

But we made it a long time before we reached this point! More specifically, we made it to the drive from Kentucky to Cincinnati. James had already been to several hundred states and probably a few planets by then, so we can't hold it against him. He even gave us a warning, which led to my pulling off the highway in search of the Golden Arches. (Based on this trip, my wife could write another blog titled "McDonalds We Disgraced," though I don't know what kind of readership she should expect.) Before anyone so much as lowered a Koala Kare, however, we had the following exchange:

Her: Don't stop. I just want to get there.
Me: Are you sure?
Her: Yes.
Me: Are you positive?
Her: Go!
Me: Okay, but--
James: (vomits on himself, my wife, the carseat, the backseat, all of the windows, the ceiling, the notion of future road trips, my wife's sanity, my ability to form words) MAMAMAMAMAMAMA

At this point, we had two hours to go. We would have considered getting a hotel or sleeping under the highway, but Jason had acquired excellent seats to the Reds game. Unfortunately, I can't relay any more information about getting to Cincinnati because I had it permanently erased from my memory. Sorry!

James's expression conveys his feelings on this matter

The next 48 hours were fun and only a little pukey. Then we had the twelve-hour drive from Cincinnati to Long Island.

James was REALLY finished by this point. He went to sleep in the car early but he made no promises. When I pulled over to get gas, he woke up and never went back to sleep. As in, he's awake now, staring at me with a look that says, You did this to me. Look, I didn't mean to, James. I just wanted to expose you to experiences that have no chance of registering in your long-term memory. Does that make me a bad father? (James's tired look confirms that it does.)

Need I say that we did not make it home? We stopped at a Super 8 hotel where the following things happened: (1) I transported two-hundred pounds of luggage into the room, (2) James didn't fall asleep for ninety minutes, (3) James woke up four hours after he kind of fell asleep, (4) We all drove half a mile to Dunkin' Donuts, where James commenced crying and there was no coffee large enough. The last five hours included two diners and James basically giving up as we drove over the George Washington Bridge into New York. In unrelated news, he was sick for five days.

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #6: Mt. Jackson, VA 2012

James hates being in the car. While this is not a singular hatred, it is a strong one. He will reluctantly tolerate the car during nap-time or bed-time, but during any other time, he views the car as an affront to his God-given right to stumble around, before smashing his head into something. If the car seat allowed James to smash his head into something, he would only hate being in the car as much as he hates being told he can't eat a cardboard box. Eating boxes, he loves.

In no particular order, James's favorite things to eat are sweet potatoes, whatever is on your plate, books, bananas, and cardboard boxes.

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How James looks when he is displeased

We had a good idea for my Spring Break. The good idea was seeing our friends in DC and Virginia, which my wife has written several thousand posts about in the past 36 hours. The bad idea was coming back to New York.

We got as far as the Shenandoah Valley, which is not far at all, when James realized what a bad idea his parents had dreamed up: eight hours in a car, many of which would happen before bedtime? And that's the best-case scenario? No, James said. At his urging, we stopped in a Virginia town nobody has heard of, whose biggest green space consisted of a thin strip of grass between a busy street and active train tracks. I was willing to see how this played out, but my wife thought we could do better. In this instance, better consisted of a vineyard many miles out of the way that was closed.

Mount Jackson, Virginia

To be fair, there was no way of knowing the vineyard was closed, but James didn't see it that way. We weren't a mile from the abandoned parking lot when James offered every last drop of the two bottles he'd consumed, as well as several cheerios, as his counter to our vineyard jaunt. I pulled off the road onto a very rocky driveway. I stepped out of the car, and my wife handed me James. He looked like he'd been attacked by a fire extinguisher. He looked he was having a bad time at a foam party. The only place he didn't have vomit was inside his veins. When I put him on a flat stone to change him, he rolled into the red Virginia dirt.

Did I anticipate that eleven months into fatherhood I would be scraping vomit out of velcro shoes in a West Virginia Chick-fil-a? I did not. Yet this is what I was doing. I would like to say that things got better, and it's true that this was the nadir of our trip, but things didn't get THAT much better. James never forgave us, I was tired with hours to go, and my wife was wearing a tremendous amount of regurgitated Similac.

Spring Break woo!

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #5: Ferberizing 2012

If James were a better sleeper, he might not be so angry. But James is not a good sleeper, so we decided two months ago to implement The Ferber Method. For the uninitiated, The Ferber Method is where you let your baby cry until he (1) goes to sleep, (2) you pick him up, or (3) he throws up all over himself and the crib. Click on the above link to see (2), which is what happens when you're unwilling to wait for (3).

It's really hard to start The Ferber Method because it's painful to listen to your baby cry. Then, after you grow accustomed to the crying, it's really hard to continue The Ferber Method because it's painful not to sleep from 2 am to 3:20 am. The longest James has ever cried is eighty minutes. At the end of those eighty minutes, he either passed out from exhaustion (not strictly the same as sleeping) or we picked him up while screaming WHY DON'T YOU SLEEP? WHY DO YOU HATE SLEEPING? WHY DO YOU HATE YOUR PARENTS SLEEPING?

James's typical response to these questions is a combination of laughing and peeing, sometimes followed by crying.

Yet The Ferber Method has been successful for us. Not the success that comes from a baby who sleeps through the night but the success that comes from a baby who goes to bed at 6:30 pm, wakes up to inhale a bottle, and then commences his day wide-awake at 3:30 am. James's schedule would be entirely appropriate if he were a longshoreman in Greenland.

But nine hours is nine hours. His pre-Ferber record was twenty-two minutes. His new nickname is The Ferbert because his sleep schedule has coincided with an increased tendency to maul women's chests, among other questionable acts. In Oedipal fashion, The Ferbert winds up sleeping with his mother in bed every morning before waking up to tear all of the hair out of his father's scalp. Such is the bargain we've made. If he's still acting this way when he can talk, we'll probably have to tell him to ask women first.

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #4: Bronx Zoo 2011

Along with several packs of small schoolchildren and a surprisingly robust collection of Orthodox Jewish families, we went to the Bronx Zoo on Monday. Like all six-month babies who don't understand what hands are, let alone animals, James was desperate to go to the zoo. Considering his sterling history of going places, we were eager to oblige.

It costs $13 to park at the zoo. That made me an angry pink baby. James was actually pretty good, by which I mean asleep, when we arrived.

The first animals we saw were giraffes. James spends many hours a day salivating on a rubber giraffe that is indistinguishable from a dog toy, so we figured he'd be excited by the real thing. He was not. Nevertheless, I took him out of his stroller, so his mother could take thousands of photographs of him in front of the giraffes.

With the giraffes

Next we saw okapi. If a zebra mated with a not particularly potent horse, their spawn might look like an okapi. We saw elephants, which had the tired look that elephants that don't live in Africa or India or whatever have, and we saw a bunch of animals that looked like monkeys, though they all had crazy non-monkey names. James cared about none of these animals, and my wife photographed all of them.

With the Langurs

James would occasionally smile or get excited, but this never had anything to do with animals. Mostly, this had to do with Latin women, whom James enjoyed flirting with a great deal.

My favorite animals were the gorillas. You could get very close to them, and they would do wise and noble things, such as stare at grass and then eat it. I also enjoyed the polar bear that slept the entire time. Out of solidarity, or because he's a baby, James slept in front of the polar bear. The regular brown bear seemed nervous. It kept pacing around the rock like it had placed a bet it already regretted.

Napping with the polar bear

There's a monorail at the zoo! I didn't see that coming. It takes you on a totally random tour, featuring buffalo (or animals that look like buffalo), red pandas, and an extremely scary tiger. James loved the monorail because we let him eat a map the entire time. Probably, this was his favorite part of the zoo.

Eating zoo map on the monorail

Ericka's favorite part was the photo booth, as she'd left her camera at home, and this gave her an opportunity to commemorate the day. What's that? She brought her camera and took over 200 photos? Ericka's favorite part was the photo booth because she has a deep and incurable addiction. Thanks for the tickets, Teresa!

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #3: Montauk, NY 2011

Since James was born on Long Island, I figured he should take in some Long Island sights. Unfortunately, most of those sights are shopping malls, so I chose the tallest sight. Montauk had the added bonus of being farthest away, so as to maximize the things that could go wrong between here and there.

Oh, the things that went wrong!

For a while, James enjoyed riding in cars, but that was before he transitioned to his current state, where he hates everything. As cars are part of everything, James hates cars. As of this last car ride, these posts should be renamed "Diary of an Angry Red Baby with Tears Streaking Down His Cheeks." When we stopped for the second time, Ericka held up James, not so I could hold him or help in some way, but so I could see his color, which is a color normally associated with firetrucks. James cries so much in cars, I just ask one question from the driver's seat, which is whether he's red or yellow.

Ericka is the one who offers wisdom, but I will add one thing based on today, which I encourage new parents to take EXTREMELY seriously: nothing is fun with a crying baby in a confined space. If we were at a Flaming Lips concert with James in the car today, it would not have been fun. If we were at Game 7 of the World Series with James in the car today, it would not have been fun. If we were Spanish explorers seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time with James in the car today, it would not have been fun.

We wanted to do two things: eat a lobster roll and see a lighthouse. This took eight hours.

By the time we got the lobster roll, all three of us were covered in sweat. The only other person at the restaurant told her friend--in front of our table--that she was sitting as far away as possible. The waitress commented that James was well-behaved, a comment she took back thirty minutes later when she observed that he really liked to be held. I meant to tell her that he doesn't like anything, but he immediately threw up all over the following things: his neck, his bib, his infant bodysuit, my hand, my soul. Ericka went to the bathroom to wash her hands, which I understood to mean weep quietly over the sink.

At Montauk Cafe (9 weeks + 6 days)

The lighthouse was covered in fog. It cost nine dollars each to get close enough to see it. We did not see the lighthouse.

Did I mention that we'd been wearing our bathing suits all this time? In my original vision of this trip, we'd zoom out to Montauk, enjoy a leisurely lobster roll outdoors where James couldn't bother anyone, admire an architectural feat, and then I'd body surf while my wife cheered at my physical prowess and my son began to want to emulate me. Nobody stepped in the water. It was just another thing we couldn't see from the place where the lighthouse was supposed to be.

The ride back was uneventful, except that James insisted--for the first time in his life--on eating hourly. Ericka assured me that this is entirely normal, and that if I read "babycenter," I would know this. The sad thing is I DO read "babycenter." The rhetoric isn't exactly to the level of the Lincoln-Douglas debates on "babycenter." Most of the spelling is purely speculative. But I'm thinking about getting active on the forums. Lying is implicitly encouraged, so James should be considerably less red there.

Foggy Lighthouse behind a fence

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #2: Drinking Problem 2011

James is growing so fast. He went from a giant baby to a somewhat longer giant baby. After having him remeasured, one of his doctors worried if James was eating too much. She was only being polite, though. What she meant is that James is DRINKING too much.

There are at least twenty reasons why I'm worried James has a drinking problem:

1) Drinks until he can't keep all of the liquid in his mouth.

2) Passes out while drinking

3) Urinates himself

4) Unhappy when not drinking

5) Rapturously happy while drinking

6) Happy, chatty, even flirty immediately after drinking

7) Sullen and distant when effects of drink wear off

8) Moody to the point where there are "two Jameses": the lovable coquette and screaming madman

9) Stares at women's chests

10) Licks women's blouses

11) Irish

12) Throws up on himself

13) Throws up on the people closest to him

14) Throws up on strangers

15) Never apologizes for his behavior

16) Acts, in the morning, like nothing happened

17) Has few interests beyond drinking

18) Averages eight bottles a day

19) Sleeps through much of the day

20) Rarely bothers to put on pants

Unfortunately, James shows no sign of letting up! You can't talk to him about it because he doesn't understand language. We're going to have to wait, at least, until he understands what his hands are. But I worry those hands will only be facilitators.

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #1: First Doctor's Visit

Mom wanted James to look GOOD for his first pediatrician's appointment, so he wouldn't be discriminated on the basis of his skin color (pink). He was wearing fancy baby clothes, including pants, a fashion infant body suit, and a hat that was half the length of his body. Occasionally, he would place the hat in his mouth, where he would consider throwing up on it.

James was well-behaved, if vaguely surly, until we disrobed him completely, which he despises. (Is James a never nude???) He screamed for a while and shook his head in the manner of those machines that shake paint cans, which is normal for him. Then, as he started to cool down, he began to urinate. Here is a short list of the things my talented son was able to hit:

My work shirt
The (previously) disinfected examination table
His head

What followed was ninety seconds of a bad network sitcom, as one parent wiped pee off a screaming baby's head, while the other parent looked down the hallway to make sure the doctor wasn't coming. My feeling is this: if your baby has a little spit on his shirt, nobody cares. If your baby is crying, people expect as much. But if your baby has urine dripping down his head, you might be those parents.

Fortunately for all, we avoided that status for one week.

James refusing to take off his diaper?


Compare to Tobias on Arrested Development