Use Your Head

I sometimes miss having young children, but lucky for me, my friend EL has them. I can enjoy all her charming little stories about her kids and sniff their little heads, and then I can go home to my teenage daughters and I can sleep. I can sleep through the night, and if I want to, on the weekends at least, I can sleep late, because chances are pretty good, if we don’t have anywhere to be, they too will be sleeping late. EL, on the other hand, hasn’t slept more than an interrupted five hour stretch in over four years. As a great philosopher once said, it sucks to be her.

Her baby, just shy of a year and a half, is at the parrot stage, where everyone, including me, wants to see what you can make him do or say. He’s not much of a talker, as most second borns aren’t, but he does enjoy a bit of physical modeling. This is a kid who started pulling up before he was supposed to sit up and was cruising before he was supposed to stand. He is not very interested in what he is supposed to do.  Don’t forget what that philosopher said (see above paragraph.)

Anyway, most people, including me, think this baby of EL’s is just about the cutest thing since kittehs and baby goats took over the Internet. Getting him to react to you is like icing on the cake. One of her neighbors, a teenage boy who likes little kids more than the average teenage boy but not in a dangerous or creepy way, has been teaching  the little cute bugger how to fist bump.

Fist bumping is becoming more than just a hip way to greet your buddies; it is also, according to both Howie Mandel and the CDC, an excellent way to reduce the sharing of hand germs. Along with sneezing into one’s elbow and wearing a mask in public like the late great Michael Jackson, fist bumping is hygienic and fashionable, and obviously a skill a little germ carrier like a baby should master.

EL’s baby thinks his fists are not for bumping, though. He thinks they are for shoving in his mouth, in an effort to ease his sore gums and to gag himself. If you offer him your fist, you won’t get a fist bump; you will get what he prefers to give in response, his head. Much like a cat, EL’s baby likes to put his head against things that he loves.  Wait; make that more like a ram. He doesn’t sweetly rub his head against you, he goes for the kill. He recently put his head against EL’s orbital socket, leaving her with a black eye significant enough to make the average kindly stranger want to offer her a safe haven.

I remember those head butting days. My own sweet babies were fond of giving head butts, most often when you bent down to pick them up, so they could get a good smack to the bottom of your chin, enough to make you bite off a piece of your tongue or crack a tooth. We referred to it as “soccer hooliganing,” and I am pretty sure either my husband or I had a bloody nose from a baby head butt. For skulls with soft spots, they sure pack a wallop.

So back to EL’s baby and the fist bumping and the head butting. Her neighbor’s son was trying to teach him how to fist bump by putting out his own fist and saying “Gimme knuckles.” The baby’s response would be to whack his head against the boy’s fist. Hilarity would ensue, mostly because it doesn’t hurt to get a head butt on your fist bump. This little demonstration happened repeatedly, just long enough for EL to down a glass of wine and wish her neighbors weren’t so friendly.

After about fifteen minutes of fist bump training, the boy’s mother, EL’s neighbor, showed up to collect her son. “Watch this,” he told his mom, and put out his fist. “Gimme knuckles.”  And the baby head butted him.

The mother laughed and wanted to try as well. “Gimme knuckles,” she said. Head butt to the fist. “Gimme knuckles,” she repeated. Again with the head butt.

“Oh, he is just so cute!” she said. “He just keeps hitting me with his head. Gimme head, come on, give me head. Gimme head!”

EL was, rightly so, appalled. Her neighbor, a good Catholic woman, was telling her child, her baby boy, to give her head, over and over, and had no idea what she was saying. EL wasn’t about to tell her what she was saying, and instead stood there, unable to make it stop.

The appropriate response to such a request of a child, if you think about it, is a good bump of the fist. Or in this case, let him give her head. She would probably end up with a skull sized shiner.

Lassoing Babies at the Food Truck Rodeo

If you think it’s easy to feed a baby dinner in a parking lot, think again. Babies don’t understand how parking lots work. They don’t get the inherent danger in running free amongst two- to three-ton instruments of death. They don’t care much about table manners in general, so the idea of enforcing manners when there isn’t even a table is, well, you get the idea.

My friend MJ came to visit me a couple of weeks ago, and like a good mother should, she brought along her baby, KS, for the ride. KS is technically a toddler now. He is about thirty pounds of pure wide open boy, and neither MJ nor I have any idea how to control such a creature. She has another child, a twelve year old daughter, whose innate peace and femininity did nothing to prepare MJ for mothering the little cyclone she has swirling around her. No child proof door knobs can deter him. No baby gate can contain him. No stroller can subdue him. He has to explore everything he can see, reach, smell, or find, and he will find a way, no matter what obstacles the world puts in his way, damn it. He approaches life on tippy toes and upstretched arms.

We spent  the first part of our day shopping with an angry baby strapped in a stroller, trying to limit his access to fragile items on low shelves and high end garments on flimsy hangers. The second part we spent hoping he would nap while visiting a friend. KS was able to occupy himself by throwing fistfuls of dog food at our friend’s pooch, who was confused by the unusual method of feeding, but since he was not one to question such an opportunity,he went along with it. By the time dinner rolled around, we were too tired to think clearly. Babies take a lot of energy. I know young moms can handle it, but MJ and I are hardly that. I am now wondering how grandparents do it.

We were too tired to cook. We were too tired to go out. We didn’t feel like picking up. Then we remembered that neither of us had tried the new food truck in town, and immediately got excited. We looked online to find out where it was parked and to scan the menu. I quickly made a turkey and cheese sandwich for KS, grabbed him something to drink, and threw it all in a bag while MJ wrestled him into his shorts and shoes. Babies don’t like shoes and shorts. They like the barefoot bottomless look, which allows for freestyle bathroom habits and easy hose downs. We were trying for civilized, though, so KS lost the battle and howled his frustration from his POW car seat behind us as we drove in search of the food truck.

We found it parked conveniently in the lot of one of those local tap rooms, the kind where you bring your growler jugs back for refills, not exactly what you would call young child friendly.  MJ and I were excited to try the deep fried Brussels sprouts, the schnitzel sandwich, the banh mi, whatever had yet to sell out, so we left common sense in the car and got in line with KS, who immediately demanded to be put down so he could take off running across the parking lot. MJ ran after him and I ordered and paid for our food.

The modern day food truck craze is all about culinary creativity with low overhead; the food is great if you can overlook the ambiance of oil leak stains on parking spaces and car exhaust. Food trucks have been around forever (remember the Good Humor man?) but only recently have they come into their own as a source of really unique food.  If you are looking for a kid’s menu and some free packs of crackers to entertain your young progeny, however, you are probably better off at a national chain. We got our food and moseyed over to a patch of sidewalk, where we proceeded to dine out of our environmentally friendly takeout containers while keeping KS entertained with food so he wouldn’t run away again.

He had no interest in the sprouts. I guess he wasn’t a fan of the cider vinegar gastrique. He didn't care about the sandwiches. He did enjoy his sandwich and milk, and then he enjoyed open mouthing my water bottle and allowing his precious particles of food to float inside.

While MJ and I fought over the last Brussels sprout, KS took off to introduce himself to the puppy on the other side of the parking lot. And much to our surprise, a car came barreling out of nowhere to fly across the lot, right in the direction of the baby. Okay, that’s probably not how it went down, but it sure felt that way. Time stood still, but MJ demonstrated supermother reflexes and snatched him up before any harm could come to him, either from the canine or the car. She earned that last sprout.

The food was great. The baby wrangling was a bit of a downer. Next time, if there is indeed a next time, we will have to strongly consider eating in the car, like all the other hipster parents who had created a den atmosphere in the backs of their SUVs, movies playing on the built in DVD’s, organic cotton blankets on the floors. It was almost like a modern day drive in, only everyone was watching their own movie, and no one was dry humping.

Dinner in the parking lot was exhausting. Both MJ and her baby were out cold about a minute after we got home. Who can blame her, really? You try shoving food in your pie hole and corralling a toddler in a parking space at the same time.

Those Brussels sprouts were totally worth it.