Baby Germ Time

A few weeks ago, Evgeniya convinced me to take a morning off to join her and Sasha at some baby-related event at the Cape Coral Public Library. I can’t remember which event it was, as the library hosts several, such as Baby Rhyme Time, Baby Story Time, Baby Music Time, Baby Does Whatever the Hell it Wants While We All Do Shots Time, etc. But the name doesn’t matter, because all the events are run the same way:

1. The parents sit in a circle near the jovial librarian, holding their babies.
2. The librarian cheerfully instructs the group to do something.
3. The parents all smile and follow the instruction.
4. The babies, paying no attention whatsoever, do everything but follow the instruction, most likely shitting their pants in the process.

Actually, I think the babies mostly squirm and free themselves from their parent’s grip. This time it was totally fine, because whatever event this was included stations all around a large room with items designed to stimulate the babies’ senses. For example, there was a station with rubber toys, a station with dried oatmeal inside a large sandbox, a station with some malleable gelatinous liquid safely underneath a clear plastic, and several other weird stations designed to make the babies’ brains work.

Sasha: “Hmm…this tastes like Hunter’s saliva. No, Mason’s. Or maybe Charlotte’s.”

From what I saw, the only sense Sasha’s brain was interested in stimulating was in her mouth. Rubber ball? In her mouth. Feathers? In her mouth. Sandbox? If it were smaller, that shit would’ve been in Sasha’s facehole. It wouldn’t have bothered me so much, but all the babies were doing this. If you stayed at one station the entire time, you’d see a group of infants slobbering all over it, then a few moments later, that group would leave and entirely new group of babies would come and put their mouths on everything. It was cootie heaven.

I seemed to be the only one who had a problem with it, because none of the mothers (yes, I was the only non-mother) seemed to notice. I’m guessing it’s because once the babies were off drooling on everything, as far as they were concerned it became Mommy Social Time.

Sasha: “Why am I having so much difficulty making a mess right now?”

I shouldn’t be surprised. When Sasha was first born, Evi and I made sure every surface she touched was cleaned, sanitized, or hypoallergenic. Once she learned to crawl, that shit went right out the window. You simply can’t keep up with a modern baby. They put their mouths on everything, and eventually, you have to just let them. One example: For a few days, one of Sasha’s favorite pacifiers went missing. We looked everywhere for it, because that’s what you do when you’re desperately looking for a way to get your baby to shut the hell up. But no matter what room we looked in or what furniture we lifted, it was nowhere to be found. 

After nearly a week, Sasha crawled nearby me, with the missing pacifier in her mouth. 

“Sweetheart,” I called to my wife. “You found the green paci?”

“No, I think it’s gone forever. Unless you found it. Did you?”

I looked at Sasha, squinting my eyes with mild disgust. 

“Yeah. Sure. Problem solved.”