Today just happens to be Sasha’s first birthday. (Well, except for the day she was actually birthed, but does that count?) What kind of special surprise are we planning for her?
Actually, we’re not doing anything. In fact, I’m going out to a couple of parties of my own tonight, and Sasha will probably be asleep by the time Jean gets home from work. It’s another regular old day here at Castle Gross.
This Saturday, though, my parents are coming down. There may be cake and gifts, although we’re not inviting any other babies over. I will take pictures. Some of us may even produce those precious memories that everyone says first-birthday parties are all about. But whatever: I’m a rational realist—none of this matters. Not till next year, right?
Before I was a dad, I commuted to work as I do now, by bus and subway. I probably spoke to one person per year, mostly when some grim unpleasantry occurred and we shared a moment’s whaddaya-gonna-do commiseration. People ignore each other in New York not out of rudeness but out of a differing definition of politeness, a subject I once addressed here.
But a baby changes everything. Make a similar commute with an infant, as I do each morning on the daycare drop-off run, and everyone smiles, waves, or otherwise engages him, and then proceeds to chat with me. It happens at least twice a week, and frequently more often than that. Some of them are nice enough, but more than a few are mighty peculiar people. Some, in fact, are desperate to talk, and just rattle on about nothing. Babies are an invitation to broach one’s personal boundaries.
Not long ago, it hit me that this is what being an attractive woman must be like: constantly being chatted up and dealing with attention–some of it pleasant, some of it awkward, some of it genuinely off-putting. Seeing something akin to that attention from the other side is a little unnerving. It usually comes with compliments, which ought to be pleasureable, but sometimes come from people I’d rather not spend much time talking with, which definitely isn’t.
The irony, of course, is that the people who chat me up are mostly women, and at least a few of them can do so because flirting has been taken out of the equation. I mean, I’m wearing a wedding ring and strapped into a Baby Bjørn. I’m as neutered and safe a male as can be. It must be a relief.
don’t forget the brilliance that is David Weinstone and his NY-based “Music for Aardvarks and Other Mammals” empire. Best children’s music anywhere, except maybe that CD of Guns n’ Roses lullabies.
Which reminds me—we have some bad, bad music playing around our house. Okay, maybe not bad per se—Dan Zanes is actually pretty good, especially when Suzanne Vega’s helping him out—but strange.
Scarier than Iron Maiden's Eddie.
It began with “Lovely Baby,” a multi-disc set by Raimond Lap, an award-winning Dutch composer of baby music. My wife and I played these CDs all the time through Sasha’s first several months of life—until I couldn’t take it anymore. The “tunes,” such as they are, are like Brian Eno on quaaludes, a dreamy, nondirectional mass of strings and shimmering chimes and plinky piano notes, punctuated by the coos and burbles of what I can only describe as Ghost Babies. “Lovely Baby” embodies all the inoffensive horror of a Canto-pop karaoke tune sung by an Enya fan.
At some point, even Jean must’ve gotten tired of this. Or maybe it was Sasha. In any case, we moved on—to a disc of Chinese children’s songs. Often done to the tune of familiar American children’s songs, these were a great way for me to learn and practice my Mandarin. Two in particular I loved: a song about an elephant’s long nose (“Mama says only such a nose is beautiful”), and one about pulling up daikons from the ground (“Pull the daikon, pull the daikon! Hey yo, hey yo! Pull the daikon!”). I even learned them well enough to substitute lines referencing Sasha’s stinky bottom.
But others are more troubling. One song, set to the tune of “My Darling Clementine,” is all about a little girl who loves going to the market. Come on! Where’s the pathos, the tragedy, the loneliness that make the original so memorable, and what does it mean that this now-happy song is set to a distinctly eerie melody?
Another, the first track on the album, which always grabs Sasha’s attention and instantly calms her down, is about dolls. Sounds okay, right? But these aren’t just dolls, they’re soldier dolls, led by a blue-eyed, blond-bearded king who’s taking them into battle. Now, I don’t know if this is my genetic fear of Aryans here, or if it’s my knee-jerk liberal upbringing saying that if Sasha’s going to hear songs about militaristic kewpies then they should at least be Asian, but I just don’t like it.
