Justin Enns

In my twenties, there were many times when I would see a whiny, whingy kid. It was rather annoying, but more annoying was the fact that if a parent was anywhere near her whiny, whingy kid, she would inevitably say, “oh, he’s just tired,” and then ask the kid for confirmation about how tired he was. He would never agree with the premise; he’d just continue whining. It always seemed like an excuse for having an unruly child and I would only buy it if I saw some real, hard evidence convincing me the boy was truly tired. Was he yawning or rubbing his eyes? No, okay, then you have some explaining to do on why you’re raising such a brat. (Now that I’m in my thirties and I have a baby, I can maybe recognise that I could have had a bit more understanding and sympathy.)

However, what I did always have sympathy for was whenever a parent said, “my baby is teething.” The word alone would strike fear in me because I knew that one day I would have to go through it. I would see the drooping eyelids and dark sub-ocular bags, muster up my sincerest look of compassion and say (without the slightest hint of sarcasm), “oooooh!” I would think, poor soul, these two weeks are so unfair. Why don’t babies come with teeth?”

Since those days, I have realised a couple things. First, if babies came with teeth, there’d be a lot of sore mothers out there and a lot more early switches to formula. Second, TWO WEEKS?! Are you kidding me? It’s a perpetual pendulum of pain! Teeth come in, they recede, then they come back again. You get a couple weeks off, then more come in, recede, then come back again! Short hiatus, then it happens again! It’s worse than Oprah’s cycle of fat, thin, fat, thin, fat.

Sure, she LOOKS cute with teeth

Ellen now has five teeth. Apparently, there is an order of things. First the top two, then the bottom two, then some molars. Well, she decided to do the top two, bottom two, then one eye tooth, or what I like to call, ‘the dagger blade.’ Some tell me the eye teeth are the worst ones. I hope so.

Now that there are five, it won’t be long for six. And the cycle will continue until she reaches number 20 when I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Though I suppose then my excuse will have to change from ‘she’s teething’ to ‘she’s just tired.’

As we tell everyone who cares, pretends to care, or who we think should care, Ellen is a great little traveller. Yes, Italians ceaselessly praised our baby for being, well, a baby. Though the English-speaking world didn’t adore her baby-ness, those who noticed certainly commented on her contentedness.

From her perspective, I wonder why she shouldn’t be so content. We spoiled her rotten in Europe, not by our presents, but by our presence (an old pun, but one that, nevertheless, continues to amuse). There is nothing young Ellen loves more than hanging out with her mom and dad, and she got to 24 hours a day for three weeks! Not only that, but if ever she awoke in the middle of the night (a practice that she perfected, once again, during our travels), we brought her into the bed to molly-coddle her, lest we wake the neighbours in adjoining rooms.

All are content (she's still pretty stingy with her smiles)

When we brought her on the plane back home for the forthcoming nine and a quarter hour journey, everyone around us glared. Sue explained that she was a really good baby and they didn’t need to worry, but they didn’t believe her. They just continued staring at the little animated plane on the seat in front of them with sneering mouths and rolling eyes. What she should have said to allay their fears was, “everyone has their own vision of heaven. Ellen’s is her mom and dad. She’s in her glory. Now wipe away that sneer and replace it with a look of contentment. After all, Mr. Bean is on your TV. You can watch him all the way home.”

She didn’t say this, but the pessimists certainly ate their thoughts once we landed in Vancouver. They all commented on how good she was. That they’ve never seen a baby so content on a plane, etc.

But of course she was happy. We were there and we were holding and kissing and loving her. However, now that we are home, the drug that is nighttime molly-coddling is being phased out and she doesn’t like it one bit. Since we’ve been home, she’s been awake during the night every night – often multiple times.

This may not be a shock to all of you. I know a very lovely three year old who is still up in the night. But you see, this egregious habit had been all but vanquished in our baby from the age of six weeks. Of course, like any good mother, my wife has a plan in place and the unwelcome practice will, no doubt, be phased out in due course, but until then, I won’t even remember my typically bountiful dreams because I’m so tired in the morning. And poor Sue . . . well, she had two naps today!

I guess the moral revolves around Newton’s Third Law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I loved Europe, but now I’m paying the consequences. Actually, I guess the real lesson from this post is that Justin really loves undisturbed sleep.

I haven’t written for a while, but whereas a long hiatus is usually due to either busyness or apathy, this time there was a very good reason, for my little family and I were otherwise engaged on a European Vacation. Of course, there is much to write about – we saw over 2000 years of history in three weeks! – but let me start my series by sharing something useful: Italians LOVE babies.

As I understand, Italians were known for their big families. No family was complete without a Vinny, Maria, Antonio, Francesca, and two Guidos. However, things have changed. The phenomenon of having no children has swept across Europe. The idea that the Earth is already overpopulated has roared into the continent. Somewhere someone along the way has told them that children cost and pollute too much, and for would-be parents, that was a Pill that was easily swallowed. And Italy is among the worst. The average family has 0.4 children!

Being there, it is easy to believe. In Rome, we hardly saw anyone under the age of fifteen. For the four days we were in the city, we noticed fewer than ten strollers! And that is what makes my thesis so much more baffling. Italians LOVE babies, but they aren’t having any.

Regardless of the reason for it, how can you take advantage of this strange irony? Well, next time you go to Italy, bring a baby with you. You will be treated like a celebrity. Everyone will stop and ogle your baby, right from 17-year-old boys to 75-year-old women.

We first noticed it on our first day when we went to the Vatican Museum. As we walked by, every single security guard abandoned his post and stern face and made eyes with young Ellen, trying to make her smile. Then we’d go into our B&B where the owners would be touching and smiling at her. Then we’d go out to eat lunch and all the tables near would be smirking, talking to her saying, ciao, bella bambina over and over again.

They loved our baby as much as we did

We took a train to Naples and on the way, there was a small family across the aisle with one child: she was about 16. They were so excited to see Ellen that they gestured to hold her. We didn’t mind one bit, so I passed her off, when the dad whipped out his camera and started taking pictures of his wife and daughter holding my child. It was as if they were the tourists, snapping shots at something so awe-inspiring. They were like my wife and me in the Sistine Chapel!

Then in Pompeii, we stopped to grab some lunch. Ellen was in her carrier on my back. A 35-year-old man came out of the back room and as soon as he saw our baby, his face lit up and he came over to us. Then I felt tugging at my back. I was wondering why Sue was taking her out, but I soon learned that it was actually the man who was taking Ellen out of the harness, the whole time babbling and smiling and kissing her. If he didn’t look so harmless and we weren’t aware of Italians’ preternatural love for babies, we may have been concerned, but instead we were just entertained. And Ellen loved it (though it’s the last time she’ll be kissed by an Italian boy!).

So if you want to turn heads and always be smiled at, and if you want to be treated like a celebrity and your baby wants to feel special, take her to Italy. Just be sure to wash her face often.

Many women dream about staying at home with their kids, my wife included. She says, “we’re not having kids to have someone else raise them.” Some men, apparently, also long for this time-honoured distinction of staying at home with the wee ones. I, however, do not include myself in this category. I say, “I didn’t painstakingly find a job so I can quit it and have them hire someone else.”

But sometimes mommy needs to get away and I am left alone at home with baby Ellen for the evening. You would think that these would be great bonding times for father and daughter, but as it turns out, these are not always fun evenings for us. Let me explain.

Ellen has never loved the bottle. And though it bodes well for her future aversion to alcohol, it doesn’t make things easy for dad who doesn’t possess the mamms that would give her the much desired real thing. Nevertheless, Sue left me with a bottle of “pumped breast milk.” Now, as every man knows, breast milk is unsafe once it has left the breast. It has the unexplained transmutable properties wherein it is nourishing to babies, but it becomes a powerful acid when in contact with a man’s skin. I once watched as my friend, a stay-at-home dad of four, skirted a little on his wrist. He hasn’t played video games since.

As you could imagine, this was disconcerting, as Ellen was becoming cranky for lack of milk. I

Breast Milk by Artificial Means

heated some water on the stove and dropped the full bottle in it. After the toxic liquid was sufficiently heated (or what I assumed was sufficiently heated), I removed it from the pot and sat on the couch with my baby in my arm. As a science teacher, I know that real breast milk is body temperature, so I concluded that if I couldn’t feel any temperature difference between the non-insulated bottle and my hand, it must be 36.5 degrees C.

I proceeded to feed my daughter. Well, actually, I then attempted to feed my daughter. She wanted none of it. I wasn’t entirely surprised – she had never taken a bottle before – but I knew I needed to make sure it wasn’t the temperature that was causing the fuss. I needed to try the milk/skin test!

I gently put down the screaming baby, took the bottle and a cloth in my right hand and squirted a little on my left wrist. It was on man-skin for about two seconds before I wiped it off – long enough to determine the temperature was fine and short enough to keep my flesh from burning.

Despite the milk being properly tepid, Ellen never did take more than a couple sips and screamed for the rest of the night until Sue got home. So in the end, even though my skin stayed intact, I still wasn’t able to play video games.

Here’s a poem I recently finished for young Ellen. As everyone knows, Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the globe and was the first to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, which he named “the peaceful ocean.” Everyone also knows that Magellan rhymes with Ellen. And so here is my poem about the two discoverers, one who sailed, and one who rolled:

My wife especially likes this poem. It’s also about her.

I don’t really know the right word for it. ‘Hypocritical’ sounds too negative and not entirely correct. The same is true of ‘megalomaniac.’ All I know is that I don’t enjoy reading poetry – don’t even understand it much of the time – but I love writing it. I love even more when other people read the poems I have written.

I also love sentimentality, and so I have decided to write Baby Ellen a number of poems throughout her first year of life. Our neighbour gave us a book of A.A. Milne’s poems he wrote for Christopher Robin before his Winnie the Pooh fame and they’re fun to read, so surely I can bang out a few that people might enjoy! They’re also rather silly, but as I have learned, babies and toddlers are not known for the scholarly pursuits or sophistication.

Okay, the first one I wrote in December when Ellen was learning to smile more. She was simultaneously learning to stick out her tongue:

A Smile’s No Smile

Til I stick out my tongue

 

Like a bell’s not a bell

Until it’s been rung

 

Tho’ now that I’ve found my thumb

My tongue is too busy; don’t bother me, mum

 

Closest I could find. She was rather camera shy at that age.

It was a good plan, but it may have backfired. My wife comes from a family of six kids and, therefore, wants a big family herself. I come from a family of two and think a medium-sized family is sufficient. We compromised at 3 or 4, but let’s be honest. Four is a lot, no?

This week we were given an opportunity to test drive 4 kids when my wife’s friends went to Australia without their 2, 5, and 7 year old and we agreed to baby/house sit. You may be thinking it was a very bold move of me to agree to such potential horror, but it was not entirely altruistic. I wanted to show my wife how busy 4 kids can be. And let me tell you, she found out.

The first evening was fine, but when we tried to go to bed, we understood what it means to have four children. Lying in bed, I heard whimpering. I got up to check and it was the 5 year old boy crying and asking for Sue because he had “a stinky” in his pants. My face showed a mixture of nonchalance (to avoid embarrassment) and concern (to look caring), but inwardly, all I felt was thankful he asked for Sue.

Why are you screaming?

Cleaned up, we all went back to bed. Then at midnight, the 2 year old begins yelling at the top of her lungs, “CHANGE MY BUM, CHANGE MY BUM, CHANGE MY BUM!” When Sue went in to change her bum, the little angel switched to a different broken record because she wanted her older sister to do it. “I WANT IZZY, I WANT IZZY I WANT IZZY!” She must have said it thirty or forty times before she finally stopped. Irritated, yes, but as long as she wasn’t shouting for me to do it, I was okay. Surprisingly, after the little one was sleeping again, Sue was fine too.

The next night saw Sue get out of bed three times. Twice for the two year old and once for our baby. Surely my wife would have regretted her decision to watch three additional kids, but nope, though tired in the morning, she didn’t complain. Instead, she fed the two oldest and let me ship them off to school.

Then Skype happened. I was volunteering for a school ski program Tuesday from 2-9:30 so Sue was left on her own with the littl’uns. It may have been manageable under other circumstances, but this was the night their parents decided to Skype. Technology is a wonderful tool. We can not only talk to people around the world, but we can see them too! It’s amazing! However, for kids prone to parent-sickness and a 2 year old who doesn’t know how to process the fact that she can see her parents but they’re nowhere near and won’t be for a long time, it can make them a bit crazy. There were tears a-flowin’ and tantrums a-happenin’. Apparently the 2 year old reverted to her baby state and wanted to be covered up like a baby and fed baby food. Needless to say, when I got home, my wife was frazzled. And then at midnight came another rendition of our old favourite, “CHANGE MY BUM!” It seemed my plan was working.

The next night was our last. I don’t know why everything at midnight has to be shouted at full volume and on repeat, but to a two year old, it does. First the bum thing, then she wants her bottle, then she doesn’t want her bottle – and all said without a breath in between. And, of course, Ellen is crying at the same time.

Yet, the next morning, Sue is ready to tackle the day. I don’t know how she does it. Maybe it’s to prove to me that she can do four, but she did it. And loved it. Of course, it wasn’t all bad. In fact, it was mostly good. I didn’t mention the forts, the hide-and-seek, and the Mario Kart, or the trip to the park, piano lesson, and soccer game. They were really good kids and we would be blessed if ours turned out like that. All I have to say is that if Sue still wants four kids, she’s going to have to be okay dealing with all the poo.

After the inflammatory comments I got last week on my dog blog, let me skirt past pesky pets and remark about something potentially even more personal: What people name their children.

At church the other week, an elderly lady walked up to Sue and baby Ellen. Naturally, she ogled over our baby, and after a few moments she asked the inevitable question: What’s her name? “Ellen,” my wife replied. “Oh, such a plain name for such a pretty girl!”

Now, I’m not sure if this was a compliment or an insult. After all, her genetics were completely controlled by nature; we were the ones who decided on her name. But let me defend myself on choosing such a ‘plain’ name.

As a teacher, I have seen many names. Some are good; some are bad. Of course, I never tell a student her name is bad, but I have certainly been told that I pronounced it badly. And being that I’m a substitute teacher, it happens almost every day. In reality, they rarely vocalise their disgust. Instead, they roll their eyes. Why do they roll their eyes? Because EVERYone gets it wrong. One day I taught Grade 3s. I did the roll call and looked down at one girl and she was beaming from ear to ear and her friends around her were smiling too. I asked her why she was so happy. “Because you pronounced my name right.”

Point number one. Pronounceable names are important to children. As pretty as the name Hephzibah is, if no one knows how to say it, it’s not worth it.

Secondly, in choosing a name, there’s no need to take a common name and put in a crazy spelling so that they can feel different. Kids don’t want to be different. Michael doesn’t want to be Mykal, Lexi doesn’t want to be Lexxie, and Ladasha certainly doesn’t want to be La-a.

Thirdly, think of the initials. Had my sister-in-law had a girl, she would have named her Faye Anne Tenhaaf. Cute name until her classmates realise that her initials spell FAT. Fortunately they had a boy. His name is Peter Harold Alex Tenhaaf. It spells PHAT. (No, they didn’t, but that would be sooo cool!)

Fourthly, think of the meaning. Now, I’m not big on meanings, but I came across a name yesterday

If you call it a worm enough times, it might just sprout them

that made me think. I sent a student outside because he was being loud and because he lied to me. What was his name? Guile. For those of you who don’t know, the not uncommon word means “insidious cunning in attaining a goal; crafty or artful deception; duplicity.”

So, would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Perhaps. But it might also be picked on, develop a complex, or sprout worms.

Please don’t mistake my daughter for a dog. A boy? I don’t mind too much; she still has a sort of unisex look about her. But please, not a dog. There is nothing dog-like about her and, for the love of dog, stop trying to create comparisons between the two species.

Last summer at a friend’s cabin, a big group of us were eating dinner. The group was comprised of mostly acquaintances and strangers, and they were telling dog stories. I don’t particularly like dogs – they’re smelly and sheddy. However, I felt I needed to contribute to the conversation, so I exclaimed, with Ricky Gervais-ish comedic timing, “I hate dogs!” I thought it was funny, but everyone sort of just blankly looked at me and changed the subject.

A short time later, someone posted on Facebook a picture of ice cream for dogs they saw at a grocery store. People were commenting, ‘oh my, that’s ridiculous’ and the like – things you would expect from such a ridiculous product. Others said, “wow, my Molly would LOVE that! etc.” As one who thinks this dog-loving fad has gotten out of control, I made my own comment: “this is why don’t like dog owners.” It was tongue in cheek, of course, but ooh the backlash I received! It was as if I had desecrated a war memorial with a tiger carcass while clubbing a baby seal.

I may sound insensitive, but I’m sorry, sometimes things just need to be said. I have learned lately from an advertisement for some dog toy that pet owners are no longer called pet owners; they are called pet parents. The worst part of it is that it’s actually true. They aren’t acting like owners, but as parents, and they expect their dogs to need as much care, love, and attention as realchildren. The other day, I even saw a woman pushing her small dog in a baby stroller. Ahhh! What is wrong with you people? They’re dogs!

This is not cute. It's sad.

And the SPCA, the organization that should know that dogs aren’t human (as they deal with them every day), is perpetuating this dog/child myth. When my in-laws tried to adopt a dog from the SPCA, they asked them what kind of sleeping arrangements they had made for it. They said they had a nice doghouse. “Outside?!” they asked incredulously. “It’s a short haired dog, it can’t sleep outside!” And they didn’t let them have the dog. Now, you might be picturing a jack russell terrier or miniature poodle. Nope. It was a Rottweiler/german shepherd cross. Keep in mind that the alternative to adoption is death. The SPCA would rather kill the large dog than have it sleep outside.

Then there is the Reader’s Digest article that is called “Separating? Who Gets the Dog?” It is all about the trauma dogs go through when their parents separate. It says that it’s difficult for the dog to adjust to going from house to house in a joint custody case and that it should just stay in one home. Sometimes, however, it’s good if the partner who wasn’t lucky enough to get custody comes over to the dog’s house for walks. Forget about the kids, it’s the dogs who have issues splitting their time between mother and father.

But to top it all off – the one that makes me the most angry – is when Sue was in the grocery store with Ellen. The cashier ogled our baby and asked how old she was. Then she asked, “is she getting excited for her car ride?” Sue was confused. “Is she excited for her car ride? Because my dog always gets so excited when he’s about to go for a car ride.”

…

I don’t even know where to begin. Infants may not be terribly much more intelligent than dogs, but at least they don’t lick each other’s bum holes. For this reason alone we shouldn’t revere them, but laugh at them. Though I must give you warning, the next time you see a man pushing a stroller to his ex’s house so he can pick up a jacketed dog to take it for a walk, don’t call him ridiculous. You’ll draw the ire of the entire neighbourhood and receive hate mail for weeks. He may even stop being your Facebook friend.

Christmas is long over and forgotten by everybody except MasterCard and Visa, but there is one more story that should be shared. When one gets away from the damning commercialism it has become; and forgets the redemptive birth from which it sprung, Christmas is all about family. Family is a wonderful thing, but unfortunately, it sometimes brings with it sick and contagious cousins.

Towards the end of our time in Langley, where we visited Sue’s family for a pre-Christmas celebration, baby Ellen started coughing. But we didn’t know if it was real or not. It sounded like the fake coughs of a healthy kid who wants to stay home from school.

As it turns out, she wasn’t faking it. The night we arrived home, my wife, the nurse, informed me that our baby had a cold. The next night was Christmas Eve, and after having opened our presents at my parents’ house, we went home to bed. Then, at 2 o’clock in the morning, Ellen did something she hadn’t done during the night since she was 3 months old: she woke up.

Yes, you might say we have been spoiled with a sleeping baby thus far and deserve to spend a couple sleepless nights, but not on Christmas! The next day, particularly to me – a choir teacher – was awful. When I used to listen to the band The Darkness, my throat would cringe because he hit high notes his body wasn’t able to hit and I could hear it screeching in pain. The same thing happens with the current singer Adele. She sings beautifully, but I know her throat is dying. What happened to both of those singers? Nodules formed in their windpipes and they both needed surgery.

Too much snot

Young Ellen’s cries had the same effect on me. Normally, her mother can’t stand her crying when we’re doing something else. She says it sounds like nails on a chalkboard when, in fact, it doesn’t have much effect on me. However, after those lost-voice screeches she was trying to scream, I now empathise with my wife.

The next night she developed croup and we took her to the hospital. Of course, by the time we saw the doctor (which was impressively fast – it pays to be an ER nurse), she sounded better. Nonetheless, he gave her some steroids and we were off to the races!

She eventually got better, as babies usually do, and she has no nodules. So I guess it wasn’t all bad. Plus, as I understand, due to the steroids, when she starts walking, she’ll beat all the other toddlers at the baby olympics this year in London.