A Fable: The Baby in Your Bosom

At night, when the sun has gone down, some people like to go to sleep in their warm cozy beds. One such person, a young mother, was ready for said repose. She put on her warm pajama pants, threw her blanket over her shoulders, and snuggled into her soft clean sheets.

When she had closed her eyes, she could finally sleep, and her heart swelled with joy.

Then she heard a cry at her feet. Looking down, she saw a baby. Before she could move, the baby spoke: “I am suffering! It is too cold for me out here, and I am bored. There is no milk, and I am starving. Put me in your bed and feed me.”

“Oh, no,” said the mother. “I know your kind. You are a baby. If I bring you into bed, you will puke on me, and I will have to change the sheets before I can go to sleep.”

“Not so,” said the baby. “I will treat you differently. If you do this for me, you will be special. I will not puke in your bed.”

The mother withstood for a while, but this was a very persuasive baby with beautiful coloring. At last the mother brought him close to her breast and carried him to bed. There she laid him gently on the sheets.

Suddenly, the baby shuddered, coughed, and puked, showering her bed in sour milk.

“But you promised—” cried the mother.

“You knew what I was when you picked me up,” said the baby as he hurled again.

Comments

Our Potty Training Journey

February 2010 GOAL: My initial goal was to introduce Soren to the toilet and make it a fun place to sit. I have to admit that I also hoped that we would have some fortunate "accidents" that would lead to potty training success. STRATEGY: My plan was to sit Soren on the toilet once a day and read him a couple of stories. If he peed, I was planning to give him a candy. THE BAD NEWS: The candy totally backfired. The one time that he peed on the toilet, I gave him a candy and he had a full-on tantrum begging for more. If I ever told him "When you pee on the potty, you can have a candy", he would begin screaming for the treat and be unable to focus on the toilet training. THE GOOD NEWS: Soren was not afraid of sitting on the big toilet. He actually really enjoyed it (when I was reading stories and not pimping rewards) and started asking to sit there any time his butt was bare. J June 2010 GOAL: My goal was to potty train Soren within the month of June

Cake for Breakfast!

I was getting dressed when it suddenly got very quiet out in the living room. Soren had been contentedly babbling a moment ago and now it was silent. I'm sure you can imagine me, rushing half-panted down the hall, hoping nothing horrible had happened. At our last visit, my pediatrician filled my mind with horror stories of infant death; now gruesome scenes were flipping through my mind like a slide show on speed. Or like the scary tunnel in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". Expecting a disaster, I was relieved when this was what I saw in the living room: The night before, I'd left a slice of left-over cake on the arm chair. We'd had company and Soren had been in bed. When I'd forgotten it at the end of the evening, it had been far from my son's greedy grasp. But this morning, when it was still left behind, it was within easy baby reach and too unusual for him not to explore. No wonder he was so quiet! He'd been experimenting with an unk

Milestone: New Syllable

This feels like such a silly thing to report about but it's got me tickled pink. Today Soren learned, what I feel, is the most important of all the English syllables: "ma". And it's about time. After months and months of hearing nothing but "da da da da" all day long, it's a refreshing change. I'm pretty sure that "da da" and "ma ma" don't correlate to anything in his mind yet. Still, he's that much closer to calling me his "mama" and I can't say the approximations don't warm my heart.

Mom Remembers

Search This Blog