Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Do and don't

Over the past few days, I've learned a couple of useful things with respect to 3.5-month-old babies:

DO wash your hands before assembling a bottle of milk. It happens that just a touch of chili is sufficient to transform the bottle nipple from a conduit of sweet nectar into a lit match held to a great pile of Screaming Baby-brand gunpowder.

DON'T cough. Particularly, having just executed a textbook bedtime routine - clean diaper and sleeping clothes, reading a book, (non-chili-flavored) bottle, gentle laying in crib - don't cough. In a remarkable biophysical process, the sound waves of the cough are instantly metabolized by the baby into adrenaline and pain, causing immediate screaming, followed by 45 minutes of inconsolable fidgetiness.