The Smile Of The Newborn Could Be Farts

Our friend Emily came by the other day to meet Animal for the first time and in the course of talking about how nice it is that random people are interested in babies, she mentioned that there's a sort of sad moment when you finally see a baby that's smaller and younger than yours.

For now though it still seems like no baby is smaller than Monkey. I like this feeling — people stop us on the street and marvel at how angelic Squeak is. Sometimes they say something along the lines of, "Great job!" We must look like idiot kids or something with our shit-eating grins and generally disheveled appearance.

So anyway, it's been almost eight weeks now. I didn't quite see how we'd get to increments of "months" after those first sleepless nights, but now time seems to go by really quickly.

[There should probably be a transition of some sort here, but my brain isn't working correctly.]

Remember that the Fourth Trimester exists because a baby's brain has to be underdeveloped enough to exit through the human pelvis. So for three months, babies are no smarter than a puppy (Jen and I had a long debate today about whether a puppy was smarter than a newborn) — it seems like they only eat and sleep, with some crying, peeing and pooping mixed in there. Jen calls this the houseplant stage. I've also heard people compare babies to sacks of sugar. Really, they seem a lot like those infant simulators, which I suppose is a testament to infant simulators, in that you only need to figure out whether a baby is hungry, gassy or wet.

But the payoff is bigger. In exchange for three or more months of a brain no more complicated than a computerized doll or a canine, babies become fully formed human beings. And that's the ultimate fuck you to dog owners: Where your "baby" will never get past crapping on the sidewalk and eating slop out of a bowl, mine might become the leader of the free world. Not to mention that babies smell a lot sweeter. Suckers.

There's something fun about this interim Fourth Trimester between fetus and human, and that's that as a parent you get real amped up and excited about welcoming this new being into consciousness. It's why you see parents freak out about seeing a baby smile for the first time, much much less a child's first words. There's a delayed gratification at work that probably mirrors the sense of delayed gratification that society tries to instill (or drill) into children. I imagine it probably also gives fathers time to get really psyched to care for a child (mothers seem to have this instinctual care thing as soon as a child is born).

Or maybe I'm just projecting all my feelings about fatherhood onto an imperfectly sketched out concept of anthropology.

I liked the nine-month gestation period because it helped me "get used" to the idea that our lives were about to change. By the time Animal was born, I had mentally prepared for this new part of life. I see something similar going on with this Fourth Trimester time. This is the time to Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! in terms of cursing and off-color talk. This is the time to be amazed by how a human brain develops. This is the time to figure out how to be patient and loving and understanding. This is the time to build a routine in terms of child care.

And the beauty of this time is that as far as we can tell, Monkey has no fucking clue what's going on. Which means we can make mistakes, figure stuff out, screw up — all within reason, of course. The one thing you don't want to do is welcome your child's first pangs of consciousness with a phrase like "Motherfucking cocksucker, show me your tits!" With any luck, by the time the Fourth Trimester winds down, you'll be goo-gee-gaw-hawing like you're supposed to when your child's brain suddenly betrays a flash of understanding.

I didn't really believe Jen when she kept saying that Squeak was smiling — I thought we heard somewhere along the way that smiling is an involuntary reaction with very young newborns — but now I see what I'm sure are smiles and evidence that he's starting to mimic our facial expressions. Either it's that or it's an example of confirmation bias — since we're probably smiling most of the time anyway.

And then there's Squeak's intense interest in light fixtures. A lot of things are "Aww!" inspiring about newborns, but the one that really gets me is how much he seems to love looking at lights. When his face isn't pressed up against Jen's chest or asleep against mine in the carrier, he's probably looking intently at these lights. It's so simple that it makes me gooey every time I see him do it. Why gooey? I don't totally know but I think it probably has something to do with the fact that someday, probably very soon, he won't have nearly enough stuff to occupy himself with and he'll be easily bored, cranky or fickle in his interests — just like everyone is as soon as we figure out how ridiculous and small those who clamor for our attention really are.

And then you have a newborn and you can make funny faces at him for literally hours because you have faith that every little gesture matters, or will soon matter. Somehow you're now hardwired to focus hold your attention. It's weird how that happens.

Passing The First Test Of Fatherhood: Returning Home On One's Own Volition

I had to go into "the city" for a work meeting this evening. I haven't been in Manhattan for over seven weeks, since before Animal was born.

The good news is that it still looks the same. This is what I saw when I popped out of the subway at Sixth Avenue and 14th Street:

It wasn't until this past Friday that we even left the neighborhood, when we took Squeak on his first subway ride. Part of our reticence is not knowing what we would do if things went wrong along the way — How to change a diaper without a changing table? What if he won't take a bottle? — and part of it was not knowing where to go in the first place. I don't know about going to a restaurant yet, for example. So we've been at home, learning how to manage fussiness in our bathrobes and with an ample supply of baby wipes at hand.

Leaving the meeting — which lasted less than two hours, mind you — I had this feeling, or a conflicted feeling. I clearly couldn't just hang out and walk around or go see a movie (early on I joked about heading out to see a movie) or smoke crack down at the riverfront. At the same time, I wanted to get back to see how Jen and Monkey were getting on. I wasn't worried about them — Jen has an advantage in that she is able to serve him food on demand — but we haven't really been separated from each other for more than a half-hour since we had come home.

But a tiny part of me thought that it might be fun to take a little stroll somewhere. It was like Rabbit, Run except I didn't have a car . . . and I wasn't going to run anywhere . . . and I didn't really want to run anywhere . . . and without Rabbit's annoying "drama" . . . and . . . maybe it really wasn't like an Updike novel at all, come to think of it. I looked at the intersection, marveled at how nimble and fearless the gentlemen making a wide turn onto Sixth Avenue on skateboards were, feared a little bit for the bicyclists riding in the dark and ducked into the subway entrance. My sojourn lasted all of a block, meaning directly from the restaurant to the subway.

What I did do was somehow end up on the L platform when a Brooklyn-bound train was rolling into the station, which worked out well in that I could take it one stop over to Union Square and switch to the N or the Q. It was funny to be on the L among so many people who I'm sure didn't have a two-month-old. They looked so . . . well rested — and this was after work even. Of course nothing puts your life in focus like realizing that some of your fellow passengers could easily be 15 years younger than you. Fifteen years? How did that happen? And do I look 15 years older than them? As Goober would say, "Take it to heart."

Jen and Monkey were doing fine when I got home, though I was slightly happy to hear Jen sound a little bit relieved that I was home.

All Of Which Is To Say, Nice Try But In The End You'll Still Be On The Hook For The Co-Pay

I had to get a cavity filled at the dentist yesterday and while we waited for the anesthesia to take, I zoned out by studying a tooth chart on the wall.

It was one of those 1980s-looking things that you might see in a science classroom and the top half showed a child's mouth, along with the ages at which certain teeth are expected to fall out. I don't know that I realized that the first ones to go are the middle ones, then finally the back ones go last. When you think back it makes sense, but like a lot of things, you don't realize there's an order of things. Like verb endings or whatnot.

But sitting there as my gum numbed, it occurred to me — and I thought to ask the dentist — Why do kids need to get cavities filled? Because if you're going to lose those teeth anyway, what difference does it make whether they rot away? Or, alternatively, why not just pull them out?

It was a good question, the dentist didn't quite say, though he allowed that he didn't totally understand every aspect of it until going to dental school.

Apparently if a baby tooth is missing long before the adult tooth comes in, the adult tooth might come in at a strange angle. Then there's the obvious reason you would get a cavity filled, which is that cavities hurt.

Oh yeah, right. Whoops.

He did add that he doesn't do fancy white tooth-colored fillings for children, "because they're just going to come out." So all that made sense. And now I know.