Lessons from the school of W.

Me, Apprx. 4am: Could you burp for me?  Please?  Daddy would really love to go back to bed right now.*

Dubya: Rrraaarghh!!

Me: Really, this would be better for all concerned if you didn’t guzzle your bottle, and burped quickly.  So much more comfortable for you, and we would all be so much happier.

D: *Headbut* (Which I interpret as: “do you honestly believe this is up for negotiation?  It’s my party, and I’ll spew if I want to!”)  Rraaarghh!

*This conversation actually took place.  Well… my part, anyway.

Filed under: Family, dribble, experiences , fatherhood, newborns

Primitive babies

I don’t really want to post on babies all the time, but I just thought I’d make one observation.  In baby literature – I mean all the guide books you read when you’re a new or expecting parent – there are frequent references to evolution.  Not that I’ve got a problem with evolution.  But when someone tells me that my tiny son’s arm or hand reflexes are from when primitive babies had to cling on to fur on their mother’s back, I have to raise a skeptical eyebrow.  How on earth could that be known?

And thanks – now I have the image of my wife with fur on her back…

Filed under: Family, books , baby books, baby reflexes, evolutionary arguments

On Naming

When I first thought about naming, it seemed as if the action went one way – I name something, or someone.  My, (or rather, our) names, were attached to a third, another who was in need of a name, incapable of naming themselves (who can?).  That was before this week.

Watching the birth of our baby, seeing a little boy come out; in a biological sense he came from us, but this was not how it felt.  Yes, my wife had carried him these past nine months, nourished him from her own body, but still, this didn’t feel like our own creation.  If I create something – like my PhD, or a bookshelf – I name it, knowing that it is the work of my hands, my labour that has brought it into being.  But who could say that of a child?  They’re there, bloodily flopped upon their mother’s belly, and, without words, asking for a name.

It goes two ways.  Much more powerful than my naming of him, was his “request”.  I responded, not initiated, with a name.  He could not be described as being entirely passive in the affair.  His being there required a name of us, not of anybody else.  It was as much his claim on us, as ours on him.  I did not, still do not, know what to make of it.

His name is Wesley.

Filed under: Family, experiences , Children, Names, Naming, Parenthood