[Sca-cooks] Should I be doing this?

[Olwen the Odd]

>This is our first baby.  I have no direct experience of how much time this
>kid is going to take.  Should I even be trying this? Am I making myself an
>early candidate for baldness and the galumphing hangnails?  Or should I
>damn
>the torpedoes and start shopping?
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>Vicente

Funny thing about this.  In many cultures the woman has the baby and does
not have the luxury of laying about, let alone the father doing it!  Babies,
healthy ones, are only as much "trouble" as you make of them.  You really
don't need an armored car full of baby accutiment.  All you really need is a
fun attitude, a few clean diapers, some seasonal appropriate clothing and a
set of keys or milkbones and either a seat or a snugglie (or both) and a wee
blanket for the ground.  By four months, the child is mostly still into
looking at everything and as long as they can see what the heck is going on
and someone to smile and read recipes to them, they are perfectly happy.  It
really is the decision of the parents.  If they really want to make a huge
change in their lifestyles to accomodate a child, so be it.  If they want to
continue doing most of the things they really enjoy doing the child will
happily adapt to that as well.  All a baby really wants is someone to make
noise, feed it and give it security by way of warmth and touch.  They begin
to learn like little sponges the second they are born (and probably before
but I haven't been there with them to know for sure).  Many folks treat
babies like they are 'things' to be fed and changed, picked up and put down.
  Wrong.  They are learning about their world in a myriad of sound,
reaction, action and sight.  For instance, I was startled to find out that
my daughter (like all monitor babies) learned by the age of 3 weeks that if
she wanted an instant sympathetic parent, all she had to do was hold her
breath for longer than a minute to set off the machine.  If she cried, on
the other hand, she got whatever mood the parent was in already.  Monitor
babies seldom cry unless they just want the excercise.  But you didn't ask
for all this.
In my opinion, I think that if you have a healthy kid, no need to change
your plans.
We here in Bright Hills have several toddlers in the guild.  By the age of
three or so we put them to work and they love it.
Olwen

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