A matter of (terrible) timing

Strolling about in Pa's hometown, we decided today to buy a teething aid for Sonny - who's been gumming away at anything he can get his hands at (as related in 'Mad mouth alert'). The young fella's grandmother figures that it's because he's about to sprout his chompers, so we got a star-shaped 'teether' that we were supposed to refrigerate briefly before handing over. Happy visions of Sonny enthusiastically biting away, emitting happy yelps, filled our minds on the way home, and we hurried to carry out the instructions.

So far, Sonny will hardly give it a passing glance. After giving the teether a few exploratory mouth-feels, he went back to snacking on his own fingers. We snatched it up and stuffed it into his mouth. He politely worried at it a few times, like a dog testing a substandard rubber bone, then moved on.

We should have seen it coming. He may only be a week into his fifth month, but he's already worked out the natural order of things: Babies are supposed to reject whatever it is that their parents try to palm off on them, then strike out on their own paths. This applies to sleeping patterns, food as well as toy preferences and - a little later on - the friends they hang out with. It even applies to crying-session timings, we've found. Yesterday, we were at a mall for a few hours and Sonny unfailingly set to bawling only when we were plumb in the midst of the largest crowds. We therefore had to beat off sundry strangers offering unsolicited advice ("You must have scared your baby somehow"). The only profit we reaped out of the ordeal were quick seats on the crowded train home, since Sonny's grumpy and distressed face led a couple of commuters to leap up in sympathy.

Not yet convinced? The day before, on the flight home too, Sonny had waited till we were in a nice enclosed space - inside the plane - before breaking out into 'song'. There were a couple of other babies too, all no doubt co-ordinating with each other using some mysterious infant signalling system, so the passengers were treated to a full-on cry-concert. Some babies would stop for a quick breath while their compatriots kept up the aural bombardment. Then there would be switching-over of roles, a rest for those most recently exerting themselves, before a grand finale in which everyone joined in.

We're hoping that, once Sonny can understand what we are saying, we can fool him with a few cunningly-employed instances of reverse psychology ("We don't really want you to come home on time"). Right now, however, we can only grit our teeth and grin.

And maybe go find a better teether.

Unleashing your inner monster

It may be true that having a child to care for mellows some previously insensitive individuals, turning them into gentler human beings. But it could be just as true that some previously soft-hearted folk are instead hardened - as their inner monster is unleashed through the crucible of parenting.

For instance, as Sonny's uncle was saying earlier today, parents who must contend with their offspring's wail-happy ways can come to lose any sense of sympathy for the travails of children other than their own. When they hear some young 'un begin to scream, or kick up an unholy fuss, their reaction is not to wonder if they might help, but to think, "Good job that's not one of ours". Over time, relief could be magnified into actual glee over the predicament of the affected family.

We might wonder how many of the famously cruel personages of history were parents gone wrong, who begin as sweetie pies but had some weird moral flaw activated after becoming dads (or mums). Admittedly, we've had no time to substantiate this revolutionary theory, and would welcome researchers with data to offer. But for anyone who think the suggestion is simply off the reservation, here are three words in response: The Corleone family.

That's right, the notorious Mafia clan may have been fictional, but it's fairly well accepted that Mario Puzo in The Godfather was basing his plot and milieu on the realities of the Italian Mob. In the classic film adaptation directed by Francis Ford Coppola, too, observe how the Godfather, Vito Corleone, is fanatically attached to his own kin and goes on and on about the importance of "family". Could it not be the case that an excessive fixation on one's own children insulates you from sympathy for the suffering of others outside the linkages formed by blood ties? Generalising from this, of course, we enter familiar territory in politics - where shady demagogues have always tried to sway crowds by turning every issue into a matter of "us" versus "them".

You mightn't agree, of course. Parenting is all about becoming ever more inclusive and giving, you insist. But we don't care about what you think any more - we've got to nip off and change a diaper.

A bully behind every tree

Big countries are forever bullying smaller countries.

That's the rap, anyway: Most recently, the Russians have been violently bossing around the Georgians, while the Georgians thumped the Ossetians (whom they admittedly consider part of their national family. For on earlier post that touches on the Georgians, click here). The Singaporeans are forever crying 'Uncle' and saying the Malaysians are playing big brother.

It must be a a holdover from infancy, or so you'd think from the dire warnings we've been receiving these last couple of days. We're flying over so Sonny can meet his older cousin for the first time. The cousin is the elder by over a year, and we've had acquaintances alert us about the likelihood of Sonny getting bashed.

"Watch out! Your son is still so young, the older boy may poke him here and there," went one typical admonition. One has to wonder whether even a gentle finger-stab would qualify as "bullying" by some folks' lights. After all, when two dogs meet for the first time, there's often a ritual mutual sniffing and even a quick lick. Apparently, this licking is a friendly gesture. But a hyper-sensitive owner might construe it as an aggressive invasion of personal canine space, or possibly a "landing of a blow".

Babies and very young children, too, may not have full control of the strength of their curious pokes or exploratory jabs. So there are times when what seems like an attack could be no more than an excessively-enthusiastic welcome. One can only assess intentions over a period of time: A sustained series of eye-gouges, for instance, could indicate that the perpetrator truly is a psychotic starting young.

As it is with babies, so it is with countries. Part of the accepted vocabulary of inter-state exchange are grandstanding, the exploitation of the media for trial-balloon statements and fuzzily-worded warnings, along with quiet negotiation, fulsome praise and hard bargaining. So what can seem like a malicious attempt to wickedly intimidate another country could be no more than the employment of such tools - in the full expectation that the other will "push back" utilising the same toolbox.

Where does such statecraft end and genuinely nasty bullying start? Alas, it's a bit of a gray area. When people start dying, it's a pretty good guess that it's getting really serious now - but things aren't normally so clear-cut. As with babies, one can only make an assessment over a period of time, not with any one or two incidents taken in isolation.

"Yurk... this stuff tastes like water!"

In old movies featuring a washed-up sailor, there's usually a scene in which he takes a swig from a shot glass, then spits it out, snarling, "This stuff tastes like water!"

Sonny isn't quite a well-lubricated old sea dog, but yesterday he was spewing out water (albeit laced with Paracetamol) like a champ. The poor thing came down with a bit of a fever after getting his most recent vaccination, so Mum and Pa were pounding up fever pills, then mixing them with water before spooning the concoction into his mouth. The liquid didn't seem particularly vile ("Rather nice, actually", Mum opined), but one reason came to mind for Sonny's highly negative reaction.

It turns out that he's never tasted water before. All these four-months-and-a-week, he's imbibed nothing but milk. The closest he's come is some doses of instant formula (since discontinued), which is made with water and powder but of course tastes nothing like H2O. Yesterday, however, he was getting the real thing - and even the sweetened taste of Paracetamol-for-babies wasn't enough to compensate for the shock. We don't know how much of the medicine reached the little fella's gut, but we'll have to arrange a happier introduction to to water by and by.

Actually, yesterday was a day of two milestones reached: It was also the first time Sonny had run a temperature. Though fighting a cold for about a week now, our ear thermometer had always given the all-clear. If, a few days ago, we had complained about his ability to wheeze on demand (mystified? Click here), he's now consistently panting like a dog that's just wildly dashed for a mile. His nose is blocked and his eyes a little watery. Yet he's still carrying on like a trouper, not being any more clingy than usual and all in all just remaining a much noisier version of his normal self.

Except when we try to feed him water, of course.

Mad mouth alert

We were at the polyclinic again today so Sonny could get his jab, and to keep him warm Pa draped a blanket over the little fella's lap. But in less time than it takes to say, "Greedy guts", he was stuffing the cloth snack furiously into his mouth. His arms were working energetically to scrunch the blanket into a nice dumpling shape, the easier to sample with, when Pa snatched the prize away.

Obviously, a new front has opened in the unending parent vs offspring wars. It was bad enough when our four-month-old just liked to suck his thumb (click here for more on these ongoing skirmishes). He still enjoys it, but these days he's widened his chomp-worthy sights to anything he can get his fingers on. These yummies have included:

1) Parental fleshy bits: Our shoulders, our thighs, our elbows - Sonny doesn't discriminate. However we may be holding him, he always finds something he wants to enthusiastically gum at, usually while overflowing with saliva. At the moment, he hasn't a tooth to his name, but this could get a little painful with time, we reckon - though we should also note that, for these illicit mealtimes, our clothes count as part of our body and are part of a standard serving.

2) Cloth: Today's blanket attack was just an especially fanatical example of Sonny's recent appetite for bedsheets, pillow covers, cloth diapers (yawp!) and bolster covers. He doesn't seem to be actually chewing - if anything, there's some sort of bizarre pumping action going on with his cheeks, as though he's blowing up a balloon.

3) Leaving the creme de la creme for last, there's also... Anything dirty: There must be a special radar sense that babies innately have, that enables them to home in on anything that really, really oughtn't be put into the mouth. Today, for instance, it was Pa's backpack strap, which has seen too much action and even managed a worrying colour-change. So, of course, Sonny contorts himself while in Pa's arms and sticks his neck out like a snapping turtle to get a good juicy gulp of the thing. Mmmm, all that encrusted dirt, dissolving in that overflowing saliva... such was 'Today's Special'. If we carried Sonny about the house like a kind of metal detector, we could probably just take note of where he lunges with glee to find the dirtiest spots of our home.

At the moment, we haven't a clue how to stem Sonny's depredations. Fitting him with some sort of mouth guard (a bandanna tied so as to block the passage, say) sounds rather harsh and would probably obstruct breathing. Okay, we jest on that last one. We could, of course, try to keep our house spick and span, with our belongings, clothes and ourselves in immaculate, chompworthy condition.

But since that's too much work, why not blame the baby?