PARENTING TAKES BALLS - BALLS THAT MEASURE 65, MAYBE 75 CENTIMETERS IN DIAMETER

As a doctor, I love to hear babies cry.

There, I've said it, confirming what you probably knew about your own sadistic pediatrician.  Actually, that always drives me nuts, when people threaten their children with their doctors.  For example, my father used to routinely threaten my baby half-sister (she's 28 years younger than I) that I, her saintly elder, would give her a shot if she didn't behave.  Silly paterfamilias, everyone knows that the nurses are the ones who administer the shots, and the only person who takes a sick pleasure in inflicting pain is your dentist.

Anyway, getting back to the topic sentence at hand:  I love to hear babies cry, professionally speaking, because a crying baby is one that is not at death's door.  After all, if a baby can cry, the lungs are working, the airway's open, the brain is getting enough blood to trigger the muscles that make a cry and is healthy enough to perceive that something requires protest, etc. etc.  Think of it this way:  can you imagine how sick a kid would have to be to not be able to cry?

Of course, as a new parent, crying drives me nuts like it does anyone else.  Now, back in the day where we all lived in the same village, if the baby started crying and we were too tired to deal with it, we'd hand her over, say, another woman, usually a kinswoman, who would also be nursing a child, and that family member/close friend/villager would do a little wet-nursing duty, or if we were so sleep-deprived that we were about to start a blog about parenting, we'd hand our otherwise angelic spawn over to another family member who'd muffle the cries long enough for us to get another hour of sleep or so.

But in our brave, new nomadic and de-extended-familied world (and frankly, would you really want to live in a village like that, Big Love-style?) (if you do, message me, as I have a script I'd like to write about you), we're stuck with "there ain't no nothin' we can't love each other through," and we have to come up with all of the clever ways to soothe our newborns ourselves.  Thus, enter the balls.

I mean, of course, the big rubber kind, pilates balls, exercise balls, birthing balls, whatever you want to call them.  (As a child in the 70s, we had a big, inflated rubber bouncy ball that had a horse-shape and a handle.  I stabbed mine with a letter opener one day, just to see what would happen.  This story has nothing to do with the fact that National Knife Day was yesterday.)  These things are miracle workers!  So I'm sure you've seen friends use them as office desk chairs to improve posture, or around people's homes as exercise tools or even just spare seats.  Generics are available at Target for 15 bucks, and they're worth it.  There has been many a night where the baby's crying, her diaper's empty, stomach full, and yet still crying despite swaddling, side-positioning, even shushing, etc., which have been the nights that I've schlepped our angel down to our bouncy ball.

Actually, I imagine it's the same idea as a rocking chair, just a steady rhythmic motion that mimics being back in the womb (for the child, just to be clear), only the bouncy balls are a bit more useful since you can move them readily, they can be deployed as spare furniture, and if you run over the cat's tail you really don't do any damage.

The large size, 75cm, is a bit biggish, and the small ones, 55cm, are a little too small.  I think most people of most sizes will find the 65cm balls the most comfortable to bounce on without fears that they'll sleepily bounce off and onto their child.

And now, since as a parent the word "balls" is de-sexualized, I'm going to revert to adolescence and see how many more times I can say it without getting in trouble:  balls balls balls balls balls...