metaphortunate | baby jokes aren't funny

It is hard to know how much it is reasonable to anthropomorphize the baby.

I mean, yes he is a little human being. But on the other hand no he's not. He doesn't do things for human reasons, he does things for his own baby reasons, he has baby reactions. He doesn't think of me as "his mother" in the same way that I think of my mother, I am something different. But he is becoming a human. At some point it will be accurate to ascribe normal human motivations to him.

The other day he finished nursing, looked me in the eye, took my nipple between his teeth - he has teeth on the bottom AND TOP now - bit me, and grinned. Because it's funny. Baby joke! I did what I do on these occasions, which is: yelp in pain, angrily say DO NOT BITE MAMA, put the baby down someplace safe, and leave the room for two minutes while he cries and cries. I put him down in his crib, and I did it roughly: I think I actually dropped him half an inch or so. It scared him. It brought home to me just how vulnerable he is: if I want him to go in his crib, in his crib he goes. He can cry and writhe all he wants: there is nothing he can do about it. In his crib he went and out the door I went, and Mr. E, who had gotten home while I was nursing him, talked me down because I was extremely upset. We waited a minute and a half and then he offered to go get the baby. And I said we'd both go, because I didn't want to be mad at the baby. I wanted to make it up. Was I anthropomorphizing? Does the baby understand that I'm mad at him? We went in the room. The baby was frantic. I picked him up, and he stopped crying. I hugged him and told him I wasn't mad at him anymore.

I gave him to Mr. E, who hadn't seen him yet that evening, and...he started crying again. Normally, and again since then, if he's hungry he keeps laserlike focus on me; but if he's not, he likes me and Mr. E equally, and does not prefer one of us holding him over the other. And he wasn't hungry then, because I had just finished nursing him. But he cried until Mr. E gave him back, and quieted when I held him. It really seemed as if he knew that I had been upset with him and wanted to be reassured that he and I were okay now. So I told him we were and held him for a while.

It's fascinating. I wish I knew what was going on in his little head!

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I hate telepathy. I fear it even though it doesn't exist. I think the entire idea is loathsome, repulsive, disgusting, every single thing that is bad. The inside of my head is MINE, and the inside of your head is YOURS, and that is how it should be. Those lines should never blur. I have felt that way since I was 8 or so and first heard of the concept of telepathy; I had this immediate understanding that this was a terrible thing.

The first year of the earthling's life, I wanted telepathy. I wanted SO MUCH to see inside his head, to know what he was thinking, because I spent all my time and energy on this baby, watching this baby, learning this baby, but I couldn't KNOW the baby. And I would have these moments of just really intense WONDERING: What is he THINKING? How does this LOOK to him? I was stunned to realize that as a lifelong telepathy hater, I would still use it in a heartbeat. It was one of those uncomfortable moments when you realize there's gap between your ethics and your wishes.

...And that is what your post made me think of.

For the record, I do think Junebug knew you were mad at him, and wanted reassurance that the center of his world was still there for him. But I can't know. Without telepathy, which thank god does not exist.

You know that bit from Peter Pan?

Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage through their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humourously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake up in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.

Nightmarish, isn't it? I think of it every time I am in the baby's room tidying up his drawers and putting away clothes and toys after he is asleep. Oh, the temptation. Thank god it does not exist.

ALL of Peter Pan is substantially more nightmarish as an adult, I find.

This is a short bit of...fanfic, I guess (what do you call it when the author is clearly not a fan?)...that an author and artist whose work I quite enjoy (Ursula Vernon) wrote in the Peter Pan universe:

http://www.redwombatstudio.com/blog/?p=4843

I'm familiar with Ursula's work, but I hadn't seen *that*.

...yes ok I'll just go have some screaming nightmares now oh god surely there is some booze around to blot out the words aieeee.

Ursula's blog is totally worth reading. Even when she's talking about gardening, which is not an endeavor that I have that much interest in.

Recently she's been doing MST3K-ish commentary on weird fairy tales. It's hilarious.

Dude. DUDE. That was great.

And the annotated fairy tales! Wonderful stuff!

*shrug* Kids get emotions better than grown-ups do, I think. Mostly because they haven't learned to out-think their feelings, or developed filters for "what is an appropriate thing to feel right now" type of stuff. And they might not always get the why of a feeling, lacking that understanding of cause-and-effect as they do, but I don't think it's over-anthropomorphizing to say that Junebug perceived you were upset, knew that he was upset, and wanted extra cuddles and reassurance.

It's sort of like why kids start crying when they hear other kids cry. "Something is upsetting, even if it's not happening to me, clearly it's worth crying about, and if nothing else that noise is stressing me out, please someone reassure me that everything is all right."

Of course that's all just best guesses, because yeah, we don't really know what's going on inside their heads.

Also, baby jokes - sigh. Cute, and yet, no. My kids are into the gross humor now, so they "joke" that they will pee on things - they thrust out their hips and make little "pssss" noises, and laugh and laugh and laugh. This resulted, yesterday, in KK actually peeing on the bed. His little face was so surprised!unhappy that I completely cracked up. Joke successful! But still, no.

Oh, that is funny as hell.

Yeah, obviously he was upset - but unless he's hungry, his dad can comfort him just as well as I can. Only not that time. What I wonder is whether he was getting that I was upset, that there was a problem with him and me specifically, not just a scary thing somewhere in his world. Maybe!

man, baby jokes. baby jokes are the worst. babies are tiny sociopaths who think they are INCREDIBLY FUCKING FUNNY.

I do wonder what is going on in their heads, especially when they do things that look for all the world intentional but "experts" swear up and down cannot be. Babies are nonverbal and not well-coordinated, not stupid, but you would hardly know it from the assumptions people make about them.

No, he's definitely not stupid! But there is so much he doesn't, and indeed can't, know yet!

And yet, there's a lot he DOES know, but which his poor frustrated parents can only infer that he knows from his actions.

Oh, man, the biting. Kay would always make eye contact with me before she pulled that shit. In a related note, Kay got weaned at 6 months because I just did not want to keep feeling suspicious and angry about what she was about to do during what I liked to think of as mellow together time.

I don't know at what point babies become people, but you're right, it's fascinating to think about. I really got much better at respecting the kids instead of feeling like they were tiny irrational robots once they could talk to me.

Yup. He doesn't bite me much - but he always makes eye contact before he does it and then gives me a huge grin. Grr.

I remember feeling that way more in the tantrums of the third year--that if only he could speak words and tell me what he wanted, I'd give it to him to stop the tantrum.

Then of course in the fourth year he learned the words, and I learned that what a 3-year-old wants is usually ridiculous, sometimes impossible, and rarely going to happen, so he might just as well have all the tantrums because really they're about dealing with the frustration of a world that doesn't go the way you want.

baby jokes aren't funny

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