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.

And Then In My Dream The Entire Van Beardswick Section Of Brooklyn Started Sporting Mullettes . . .

So the Inscrutable Bag Of Grunt seems to be losing his "baby hair," meaning the hair that came out with him on day one. (I keep thinking of how the characters on Up All Night were grossed out by watching a video of childbirth: "It's like hair coming out of hair!")

We now know that it's normal for a baby to lose his hair before the for-reals stuff grows in. The only thing is that it's a little unsettling to see a newborn with apparent male pattern baldness.

At first, Grunt's hair sort of looked dignified — a widow's peak, like Minor Threat-era Ian MacKaye — or maybe even Richard Nixon. Then it started to leave his head and he began looking more like Ed Harris or, say, Scott Adsit on 30 Rock.

In the last couple of days Animal's hair has dwindled to a dainty copse on the top and what seems like a small mullet in the back. I don't know that anyone has tried to do a hair style that was only the mullet, but this comes close. Jen thinks it looks like a friar's hair, but that was so three days ago.

So one of us — it doesn't matter who — took a look at this "hair" and decided that maybe we should do something about it. In other words, take Charles Barkley's advice to LeBron James to heart and just shave it. (Get shaved!)

Which all sounds well and good until one of us — it doesn't matter who — was like, "You can't shave a baby's head!" And the other one — it doesn't matter who — was like, "Why not?" And it went back and forth like this until one of us — it doesn't matter who — finally said, "Why don't you call the pediatrician and ask him if he thinks it's a good idea to shave a baby's head bald?"

That spawned a new guideline for us: Would this be something you felt comfortable asking a medical professional about? And if the answer is no, then you probably shouldn't consider doing it. It's a variation of what they tell you about posting crap online: Would that picture on Facebook of yourself shotgunning beers be something you'd want a future employer to see? You get the idea.

In our case, I think we've decided to let nature take its unfortunate course. And perhaps we might invent a new hairdo: The "Mullette" or "Bro" as the hair also basically resembles a backwards visor.

My Genius, Your Child's Onesie

Before Animal was born I didn't think much about baby clothes. To me they were like a uniform — like something an auxiliary police officer might wear. Pinks, blues, ducks, pastel yellows. Stuff like that.

Before Animal was born we got more clothes than we could possibly use for him. A friend gave us four giant bags of clothes. We probably got four more bags of clothes as gifts.

I assumed we would dress Monkey in a sensible smock or something, but then we got all this stuff, so of course I feel like we should use it. A lot of it is wonderful. Some of it less so.

Sometimes, for example, clothes just outright lie. Case in point, Squeak has these baby mittens — cutest things in the world! — that loudly proclaim, "I Love Kisses." This monkey may love a lot of things — being swaddled, dirtying diapers, tits — but kisses are not one of them. I should know — I've tried. Every day I try to give him a big smooch but he either sits there unmoved (a good day) or actively recoils (most days). So the gall of these mitten-makers who presume to know what he likes. It's confusing, if not thoughtless.

Another item in Squeak's collection is a one-size duck-decorated fleece thing with a tag saying "Squeeze Me." Come on, isn't that a little presumptuous? And again, he may like a lot of things — flopping on your chest after eating, waiting to urinate until we've put a fresh diaper on him, a nice rack — but "squeezing" certainly doesn't seem to be one of them.

Then there's the "Mommy Loves Me" tag. Don't get Jen started on that.

Of course, when they're not cloy-saccharine sweet they're just inscrutable. For example, here's one I don't understand: a Pink Elephant onesie. Pink elephants? Isn't that like . . . ? Why yes it is.

Then there other items that read like bumper stickers. Jen keeps showing me websites selling onesies with quips printed on them about poop or tit. Apparel with the logos of bands popular in the eyes of aging Gen Xers. Shirts with ironic tags like "Boob Man":

The thing is that while the cloying stuff might tire you out, it's absurd to pin ironic slogans on a newborn's chest — after all, this is a creature whose brain is sufficiently underdeveloped such that his head can squeeze out of a human pelvis. And all you can think about is a sardonic quip? How can you do that to such an innocent angel?

I'd say that we should go back to my smock idea but then I realize how many pictures we're taking of him and I realize that this is basically like being followed by TMZ all day — and the baby has to be looking good all the time.

Honestly, I guess being a baby is a tough gig. No wonder they can be so prickly.