So I'm taking a necessary paternity leave from work which has given me time to change the baby's diapers, take photos, learn how to set up and use the perambulator, set up and use the new fangled filmless camera that apparently takes movies, and have plenty of skin-to-skin time as well. I may have mentioned in the past that I believe there is a definite Maternal-Industrial Complex in this nation (all one has to do is look no further than Babies 'R Us or watch The Jersey Shore to come to this belief), and although I want to cash in on this gig, from a previously posted photo you may be able to tell that simple trick, i.e. the button-up semi-dress shirt, is a perfectly adequate substitute for any slinging/baby-carrying product one might pay Benjamins by the nearest La Leche League encampment. Provided you don't move anywhere and risk having the baby slip out of your shirt and onto the pavement.
Well, one more thing that I have to worry about is whether my child is going to grow up to be cool or a douche. Now, by douche, I don't mean exclusively the Ed Hardy wearing/Not of this World car-sticker having (in case you're not in or haven't been near Southern California/Orange County in a while, the NOTW reference is to the proliferation of stickers that cryptically signal that the car's owner is a member of the endangered Christian minority, kinda like the original ICHTHYS fish in the Roman catacombs, only nothing like that at all since Christians are the bullying majority around these parts, and I can say that as one of those - they, meaning we, act like we're smuggling bibles into Soviet Russia by plastering the rear windows of our cars with these decals that look like Ed Hardy rip-offs [which brings me to the separate point that Christians somehow don't seem to think that it's an infringement on intellectual property rights if it's a Christian related thing, like appropriating a Coca Cola jingle or Calvin and Hobbes, after all, it's Christian so it's the exception] that spell out in various kinds of Gothic or Evanescence-type font, "NOTW", "Not of this World", meaning Christians aren't of this world, they're actually some kind of space alien here to probe your atheist rectum with spiritual rectitude) type - and don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that I don't want our daughter to be Christian - but I don't want her to be the kind who's like an elephant near a mouse, convinced that everyone little thing is here to persecute the hell out of them in their own stronghold.
By douche, I mean both kinds, both OC housewifey and post-hipster hipsters, exhaustingly sincere because they're somehow supposed to be as well as tiresomely detached for the same reason, because they're supposed to be. Which is all a long way of saying that I want my child to not listen to shitty music.
There, I've said it, I don't want my child to listen to shitty music. Not that I haven't enjoyed my fair share of it in the past, but good lord, if my child's singing "Call Me Maybe" or some Nicki Minaj/Miley Cyrus/Justin Bieber/other lesbian nonsense (not that there's anything wrong with lesbians, it's just these idiots who pretend to be lesbians for provocation's sake) I will set her head spinning with my (metaphorical) backhand.
As a ward against feculent musical tastes, during the last trimester of the pregnancy every evening I played a new song for the baby, while in utero, from my MP3 player, and that became our nightly ritual, me pre-partum indoctrinating my child with my own musical tastes while my wife looked on, amused, knowing that pretty soon I'd be jamming to Raffi like every other dad who's convinced at the beginning that they know better.
Anyway, now that she's ex-utero I'm going to resurrect this ritual for my daughter for as long as it'll last (maybe high school - that's usually when they can drive away from your music). Admittedly, most of my playlists consist purely of Elliott Smith, so there's actually not much in the way of tastemaking there after all, but anyway, here's a recent song I played for her - yup, Elliott Smith.
Raffi can wait his inevitable damn turn.
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