Southerly: Nine Months of Baby Hell
102 Responses
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My kids liked Salmonella Dub as wee ones. And Johnny Cash/U2 The Wanderer for their country fix.
All this drama and only one kid, it is better once you have two, and they can take turns in waking each other. Despite never seeming to sleep, I have a preschool academic and a toddler sports star. I may fall into the middle group, I can complain and brag at the same time.
Each of ours arrived while one parent was writing a Masters, miraculously they both got finished.
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David, Bob looks like you, you know ...
(/me takes all the pain away)
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A mate of mine in LA works in the music biz and has two boys, aged 3 and 5.
They like watching Sponge Bob on dvd. One of their favourite episodes has Bob saying that "...there are three ways to show that you're not 'Grandma's little boy' any more: pushing out your chest, asking for a tax deduction and appreciating free jazz."Recently, after watching said episode, he asked them if they wanted to hear anything. "Free jazz!" they chorused. So he put on Coltrane's Giant Steps figuring it'd be more their speed. "Too boring!" they reckoned. So he got out the motherlode of the genre, Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz. They immediately loved it and happily played right next to the speaker for the hour or so it played.
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"Burning Ring of Fire"
I'm sure YouTube would prefer a toddler singing along to Fulsom Prison Blues.
Just trying to match the tone you describe, have you tried Buddy Holly?
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Oh - it's "Folsom". Though 'fulsome' is also tempting.
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I hardly know anything about country,
But Bob obviously does. He has latched on to the motherlode from which all the alluvial has spread. he almost certainly enjoys the redemptive chorus,
"I'm going where there's no Depression
To a better land that's free from care
I'll leave this world of toil and trouble
My home's in heaven
I'm going there"Revived by Jeff Tweedy in his Uncle Tupelo mode and the name of the first alt. country fanzine, sadly just ceased publication. Maybe Bob is shittin on you because he's stuck in Riverton When Tweedy has just played Whitianga and Wellington?
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Sheesh, your baby is so ugly you could win prizes at the A&P Show
"Our daughter can quietly amuse herself for hours watching her baby-mobile," claims a member of our Plunket group. "We're actually getting too much sleep now that the baby's arrived," says another....
What a bunch of f**king show-offs. Never once has our son been amused by his baby-mobile for so much as a nanosecond. Over the last four months he has slept a maximum of five hours a night, and seldom longer than an hour in a row.
That's because you're trying the modern PC approach to parenting. You've got to kick it old school and give the bub a tablespoon of cough medicine everytime you want them to sleep, or just get some 'me' time for yourself. And not the diluted childrens syrup either, but some of that 40 Proof stuff you use yourself.
That's what my parents did, and I turned out alright.
It's also why those show off parents are getting so much sleep. Their babies are staring at mobiles for hours because their brains are fried.
</medical disclaimer>
The above advice should not be taken without the express permission of your local Plunket nurse. (Which you can get by saying: "This guy on the internet suggested I should ...") -
"The storm will hurl the midnight fears,
and sweep lost millions to their doom.""Bob usually gives a huge guffaw of laughter when he hears that last line -- a response which, I fear, is already not a good sign.
I suspect the angelic-faced child is imagining the millions he will be awarded when he sues his dreadful father for defamation of character. Clearly no-one who looks so sweet could be guilty of the dreadful acts you claim. Ditto for your lovely son Julie Fairey - shame on you both!!
Disclaimer; the writer will not be held liable to provide baby-sitting, nappy changing, tantrum therapy or any other participatory act which may prove validity of the parents claims.
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I suspect the angelic-faced child is imagining the millions he will be awarded when he sues his dreadful father for defamation of character. Clearly no-one who looks so sweet could be guilty of the dreadful acts you claim
I will appear for the defense. I held Bob once. After he'd been safely restored to his father and stopped screaming, he spent the next fifteen minutes or so giving me the kind of look I'd previously only received from people's mothers and girlfriends.
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It took me some time to realise that I didn't have the slowest baby in my coffee group but was just the worst lier. My oldest was also a once-a-week pooer (we went nowhere on Fridays) though his were more concentrated than explosive.
I'm sure that a strong willed, characterful baby like Bob is going to be much more fun as he grows than those babies who sleep all the time and never complain will be.
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Deep in conversation with Adrian the Rabbit.
Awww... In twenty years, that pose is going to be creepy but until them keep playing him the original boradway cast album of Gypsy. if Ethel Merman in fully roar doesn't stun the hairless ape into a submissive torpor, nothing will.
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Some people do have well behaved babies - it does happen. It does feel a bit like a competition sometimes but that is not the baby's fault.
It usually takes kids a few years to work out what kind of music will wind you up and so Bob is clearly ahead of the game with this one.
However now that you're coming to terms with country music he might have to change his tastes again just to be different.
May I suggest the Michel Gondry video collection - especially the Bjork video's.
My daughter loves those but not all of his work. There was a Stones video which got the thumbs down and some other tracks she also didn't like.
Make the most of all the time youn have because as soon as you get used to it something else will be happening
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I have secretly been taking some solace in stories of Bad Baby Bob. "The forthcoming 'Lil Red can't possibly be as bad as Bob" I tell myself. It is a little reassuring.
Interestingly, as reported in the Bob/Rodney post, midwives do say "Oh that's perfectly normal" a lot. Given that this appears to be their standard response to any reported issue, I do sometimes wonder why they bother asking questions.
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And anyway, David, if you get too sick of people bragging about how fantastically advanced their child is, show them the photo of Bob standing up at nine months old. Now that's some balls there, little man!
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Mr Kennaway, you have only to date seen my lovely son in 2D (iirc). Wait until you get the full experience before you judge whether I have defamed him or not ;-)
Actually he's a good little tyke really. Most of the time. The last few days have been an exception. I hope. Can you tell that I'm not quite sure what I'm doing?
IntObs, you might actually be surprised how many people have told us that we should give our baby (and I'm talking really really young baby) alcohol to aid sleeping. Get it to suck some off your finger, rub some on baby's gums, add it to the bottle, whatever. They've all been serious.
David, your Bob looks just grand, and from your writing he sounds like a real character too. People keep telling me just wait until Wriggly is 6 months old and then he won't be so boring, but I am actually finding him fascinating now at under half that. I suspect your Bob and my Wriggly could keep each other amused for hours. Heaven forfend they should ever meet, or surely they will plot our downfall.
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Yo, give the kid another chance...play him Ry Cooder!
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Our 18 month old says 3 words (one pronounced incorrectly and they're all Korean damn it!). The idea of her being able to count to ten when she is two is hysterically.... not going to happen. I'm going out on a limb and suggesting she won't even understand the concept of 'counting' for at least another year and that might see her getting to... one and no further.
She only understands about half a dozen other words. Has learnt a few tricks though, like lifting her shirt to put on roll on deoderant, she is also good at opening and closing the disc drive on the computer and likes turning the whole comp off when you are typing an email.
She is also great at pulling all the dirt out of pot plants, walking through it and getting it on her face. EVERYDAY, usually multiple times!
She only eats dinner if she has my school pencil case in front of her so she can pull everything out and deposit it on the floor.
She enjoys flicking through books which are for children far older but usually its to either draw with her crayons on the pages or rip them out, screw them up and go deposit them in the kitchen rubbish bin.
He lego blocks are for tipping out onto the floor and walking through.
Teddy bears are throttled and then thrown.
My hair is to be pulled and my mouth is a vessel to be filled with any objects she can find.
All dvds and books are removed from shelves and scattered to the winds on a daily basis.
She regularly goes hunting in bathroom and bedroom draws for hair ties, shampoos, socks and underpants, which are then put somewhere else, namely the middle of the hallway floor to stand on in the pitch dark.
Aside from that she still sounds like a dream compared to Bob.
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Kyle Matthews wrote:
My experience... is that parents fall into two categories.
1. OMG things are so good...
2. OMG it's so stressful...
In my experience, the second people are the same ones who have two hour conversations in life about how busy they are and how stressful that is, rather than... doing whatever is it they need to do.
My granny has the same theory. But I think the problem with this concept is that it ignores the fact that all babies are different. While parental attitudes will have some effect on a baby's behaviour (and/or the parents' perception of their baby's behaviour), there's no getting round the fact that some babies are much more difficult than others -- as a consequence of medical conditions or just plain personality type.
I've seen loads of people who have a super-easy first child, and are then bowled over by a super-difficult second child (ask Jolisa Gracewood about this). I've also seen the opposite, with parents getting down on their knees and thanking God that their second child is such a breeze.
My complicated scientific explanation for all this is that -- mainly -- it's just luck of the draw.
David Haywood wrote:
Metallica and the SF Symphony Orchestra... holy fuck.
Pauline Dawson wrote:
... that Mettalica album is 'interesting'. I guess if you have money you can buy the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Oh, I genuinely thought that the SF stood for 'science fiction'. Somehow the idea of Metallica doing an album with a musical body called the Science Fiction Symphony Orchestra seemed quite plausible to me. The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra sounds rather dull in comparison.
Rob Hosking wrote:
Other good country songs:
'Drop Kick Me Jesus through the Goalposts of Life' by Bobby Bare is a classic.
I was highly amused by the song -- but (thankfully, I guess) Bob really hated it.
Jake Pollock wrote:
The Anthology of American Folk Music is what you want. Four discs jam packed with depression-era 78s.
Thanks for the tip, Jake. I note that it contains a song by Blind Lemon Jefferson called "See that my grave is kept clean". Sounds like it should be right up Bob's alley. Jennifer is attempting to buy it online as I type.
John wrote:
Could I suggest you try 'Maple On the Hill'... made famous in NZ by The Tumbleweeds in the 50's...
Sounds interesting, John. I will try to find it in the Invercargill public library. They seem to have a good collection of such things.
Our 1st born is now in his middle 50's and I can assure you and your lady wife that the first 21 years of parenthood are the worst. Don't give up.
Oh, such cruel humour!
Lyndon Hood wrote:
Oh - it's "Folsom". Though 'fulsome' is also tempting.
Your mis-hearing is better than mine, Lyndon -- for years I thought it was "False Imprisoned Blues".
Leigh Kennaway wrote:
I suspect the angelic-faced child is imagining the millions he will be awarded when he sues his dreadful father for defamation of character.
Emma Hart wrote:
I will appear for the defense. I held Bob once. After he'd been safely restored to his father and stopped screaming, he spent the next fifteen minutes or so giving me the kind of look I'd previously only received from people's mothers and girlfriends.
Thanks for your testimony, dude. Yep, he can really stare daggers, can't he? You should see the look I get when I refuse to do a fifteenth encore of "Will you miss me when I'm gone?". The irony of his death-stare seems to totally escape him.
dc_red wrote:
I have secretly been taking some solace in stories of Bad Baby Bob. "The forthcoming 'Lil Red can't possibly be as bad as Bob" I tell myself. It is a little reassuring.
Best of luck with your forthcoming 'Lil Red, matey. We find most of Bob's antisocial antics pretty funny, really. He bit me really badly today -- hard enough to draw blood. How I laughed!
Julie Fairey wrote:
Heaven forbid that [your child and my child] should ever meet, or surely they will plot our downfall.
Yamis wrote:
My hair is to be pulled and my mouth is a vessel to be filled with any objects she can find.
All dvds and books are removed from shelves and scattered to the winds on a daily basis.
She regularly goes hunting in bathroom and bedroom draws for hair ties, shampoos, socks and underpants, which are then put somewhere else, namely the middle of the hallway floor to stand on in the pitch dark.
Hey, I'm seeing a television series here. A bunch of babies and toddlers are left alone together in a house for 12 weeks, and each week the best-behaved is voted off... maybe call it 'Little Brother'?
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"We're actually getting too much sleep now that the baby's arrived."
That's one way of putting it I suppose. Another way might be "we can't get anything done because every minute not spent attending to the baby's needs is being spent sleeping." Been there, know the feeling.
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Take this along to your next Plunket meeting.
"A child prodigy who was one of the youngest students to be admitted to Oxford University is now working as a prostitute, it has been claimed. "
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10501268
I just thought child prodigies never achieved anything in life. -
Shep, you dont think that might be one of those annually recurring "special date related" stories do you?
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Shep, you dont think that might be one of those annually recurring "special date related" stories do you?
If I hadn't heard it on the news last night, I would have thought that National's $50 crime levy was related to today's date.
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Shep, you dont think that might be one of those annually recurring "special date related" stories do you?
if it is, its a terribly unfunny one.
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Ok, I'll have to withdraw that accusation of an April fool prank.... Googling the woman's name finds many stories... She is a real person.
Sad.
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"A child prodigy who was one of the youngest students to be admitted to Oxford University is now working as a prostitute, it has been claimed. "
Whereas the only qualification you need to whore for the Srews of the World is functional illiteracy and a dead spot in the part of your brain that controls shame.
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