Babyhood (9780062098788) by Paul Reiser

all-purpose phrase also works as a marital greeting. The “Hi-sweetie-how-was-your-day” of yesteryear is now replaced with the more simple, direct, and mildly irritated “It’s your turn.”
    Before you have a child, you and your spouse are many things to each other: friends, lovers, competitors, partners . . . Upon producing a child, you relate to each other primarily as sentries.
    The two of you are guards who rotate shifts monitoring and protecting your new charge.
    When Baby enters your world, there’s no time for intimate conversation between Husband and Wife. In fact, the extent of conversation often consists solely of the reporting of Baby’s “eating-sleeping-pooping” status—just before the changing of the guard.
    â€œHi.”
    â€œHe ate, he napped, he needs to be changed.”
    â€œI just walked in. Can I take a shower?”
    â€œYou should’ve showered before we had a kid. It’s your turn. ”
    Then, like buck privates relieving one another at Guantanamo, you’re on duty and your wife gets a four-hour pass.
    W hen it comes to knowing when to change your child, there are four essential tools : smelling, looking, squeezing, and peeking.
    It usually begins with the smell—a kind of “silent alarm” that lets you know it’s time for a fresh diaper.
    In an attempt to keep the “hands on” part of the diapering experience to an absolute minimum, you next eyeball the diaper. Is it drooping? Perhaps swaying a bit? Does the child look like he’s been riding a horse for many days? If so, it may be changing time.
    But sometimes looks can be deceiving. So, for further confirmation, you unceremoniously lift your child up and sniff him like a cantaloupe.
    â€œ Sniff, sniff . . . he either needs to be changed or won’t be ready to serve for three or four days.”
    Then you’ve got your squeezers , the parents who take the melon analogy to the extreme, and frankly should take a good hard look at themselves.
    And for the final test—you peek. No niceties, no subtlety, you just pick up the child, pull back his pants, and look inside.
    If you’re right, and the child needs changing, you’re vindicated.
    If he doesn’t need changing, you both feel a bit foolish. You, for being so off the mark and harassing a perfectly innocent child, and the child, of course, because someone’s pulling back their pants and looking in. Usually the baby will turn back to you as if to say, “May I help you?” And your honest answer is, “No, thanks, we’re just looking.”
    The only good thing to come out of this embarrassing standoff is that for a fleeting moment, you get a freebie look at a cute naked baby bottom. And it’s never a disappointing visual. Especially in this circumstance, where you’re looking from above and can see only the top half—the net result of which looks like a miniature Ten Commandments.
    Â Â Â Â 
    I t should be noted, also, that changing diapers is not without its entertainment value.
    When you’re changing a diaper, one of the things you have to do is lift the baby’s little legs, bend them, and swivel them. Sort of like when you’re cooking a chicken and you look underneath to see how the potatoes are doing.
    Now, sometimes, if you swivel a little too far, a special little gust of wind will whiz by your knuckles. An appreciative, resonant “Ode to Lunch.” What I discovered is that if, at this time, you continue to bend their knees and rotate them from the waist down, you can alter not only the tone but the duration of the sound. It’s not unlike the mechanics of a bagpipe—though without the woolen kilt and sense of celebration. But musical nonetheless.
    With the proper technique, you can get them to sing entire tunes. Well, not “sing” exactly, but I did extract from my son’s bottom the first few bars of