Three days after my last post a change in the “matrix” occurred. We called it Keagan and he is yet to acknowledge our existence. Sure he stops screaming when he’s fed, held, sung to, cuddled, rocked, washed, changed, etc. But he doesn’t really seem to mind who it is that enters his world to do this. Of course we all know there’s a difference and research says that there’s deep scaring especially when the birth mother’s not there. That aside, it is hard to find anyone as self-centered as a new born infant.
Even as I write I’ve been interrupted by a screaming baby who apparently finds gas less than humorous. So now he’s lying across my knees rocking back and forth in the hope that the motion will free the seemingly endless reservoir within.
It’s all about timing:
If you have an awake playful baby who is about to “cut a branch from the cheese tree” then they pre-warn you with a cute smile. Evidently all smiles at this age are gas related. However this little smile is nether-the-less claimed by parents, mothers especially, creating increased attention around the baby. “Oh look. Come quickly he’s smiling”. So more people enter the infant’s universe, thus leaving themselves more vulnerable to servitude. Or… If you put the infant down to sleep and they need to “step on a frog” a slightly different approach is taken. All hell breaks loose with emergency scream alarms sounded until someone kicks the door in and applies a massage their ruby-wubby-dubby-tum-tum.
From my limited experience I will perilously continue with the following statement and hypothesis:
Statement: Gas in the good old infant days was a celebrated collective activity when people would appear from nowhere to smile, laugh and even take photos at its imminent arrival. Males (especially western men) post infancy grow up to find bottom burps to be some what humorous. Females seem to take an alternative course of development, they become women. Hypothesis: The adult male (western) laughs loud and proud at flatulence in an all male group situation, but experience negative emotions (in the car) when others are not there to share.
Maybe Sigmund would suggest we confront our mother’s with, “Why all the fuss when I was a baby? I was just farting. Now when I’m by myself I feel like I’m being selfish!”
It’s a world of mixed messages…
October 6th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I once read that a survey found 85% of men thought it humourous to break wind in bed. There was no mention of whether those surveyed were single or married (or divorced)…if they were single it shows that men have learnt to override those negative emotions by laughing at their own “joke” anyway!
October 6th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Pyley
They could have been any number of things, single being one of them. But there’s a not person out there that really believes these guys were giving themselves a dutch oven… and laughing about it.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Got to love your own brand a whole heap to dutch up yourself.
What school did you go to Damo…
October 20th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Sadly a very Dutch school… but not the metaphoric “Dutch” as you’re possibly implying.