Parenting 101: First give up your dignity.

Kids are cute. There is no way around that fact. They are drooly, pudgy masses of cuteness designed to make us love them, in a primal way, so that we do not leave them behind when we uproot our lives and move on to the next encampment where the nuts and berries are plentiful.

“Kachuk, where baby?”

”Me left at other camp because baby heavy.”

”Good idea. We got other one.”

That’s why nature makes them irresistible. Just try to tell your wife that you left the baby at the supermarket because there was no way you could fit that charcoal in the cart with the baby in there too. You have to set your priorities.

Once the baby has you firmly wrapped around her little finger, you find that your entire life is spent on meeting her needs. Be it food, comfort, sleep or entertainment. The first three are easy. If she isn’t hungry she must need to be held. If that doesn’t help, try to get her to sleep.

It’s the entertainment portion that gets tricky. After all, this is a being who has no concept of entertainment. Where Harold Lloyd may make you laugh uncontrollably, a baby will have no frame of reference. What makes a baby laugh is a mystery and, it may not work two times in a row.

Raspberries? Hilarious. For a while, but you better have more material than that. Tickling? It moves from spot to spot. It takes time to find its home on the chubby body. Funny faces? Yeah, that’s nice. But you have to have a wide repertoire. Remember, everything is new to this little mind. While it may stand to reason that fish lips will be a time-honored, hilarious gesture, the kid is seeking more challenging material. Why get stuck on fish lips when wind is cool? “Something is touching me, yet . . . nothing is touching me. Woah.”

That’s why we lose our dignity. It’s all for the sake of the kids, man. It’s all for the kids.

That’s why, for some reason, all of Gertrude’s toys have names. And we’re not talking “Blue Rattle”, no. It goes beyond that.

Our family has the following toys:
Floofy Fly
Chewy Fly
Bumpy Star
Orbit Ball
Snozzleberries
The Chronosynclastic Infandibulator
Butterfly Guy
Ladybug Guy

And on and on. If you were to come in from the outside and say, “What’s Gertrude playing with” we would genially reply, “Floofy Fly.” If you were to be hanging out, we may ask you to hand us the Chronosynclastic Infandibulator.

That you don’t understand is your own fault.

Parents, at the moment of birth, become their own mysterious culture. We have our own language. We have our own customs. We have our own relics. We even have our own music. (How many sane adults choose to listen to music by The Wiggles. None. Because you have to be insane. Having a child automatically makes you insane.)

Eventually we may have our sanity return. Perhaps by the time Gertrude hits school.

But by then, Kaitlyn will be 12.

And just the thought of Kaitlyn going through puberty, becoming interested in boys and being only four years away from a driver’s license makes me yearn for the blissful ignorance of complete, utter insanity.