Newborns Suck.

I'd like to dedicate this post to my friend the Motel Manager, who is in the thick of newborndom right now. In fact, I'd like to dedicate it to all new mothers, current and future, to applaud them for their perserverance, and to reassure them that it gets so. much. better.

Last night, after I fed Clio, I had her on my lap and was bouncing her while singing some kind of ridiculous, rhythmic song that went more or less like this: "Dickadicka doo doo dickadicka dee, dicka dicka dah dooka dooka doo," and the child laughed. She laughed!! It was the greatest thing ever. Because, as we all know, humor is the finest and truest and most universal means of human connection there is (aside from sex). And, because baby laughter is the cutest, twangiest most joyful little sound there is.

Newborns do not laugh. Nor do they smile or look you in the eye or nuzzle their head into your shoulder when you carry them. All they do is lie there and sleep -- except when you want them to -- or cry and scream, usually without any apparent reason. They poop and pee when you try to change their diapers. They puke all over the place. They're wrinkly and scrawny and floppy and most of all, they're boring. B-o-r-i-n-g.

I seriously suspect the sincerity of people who say they're "madly in love" with their newborns. What's to love? I mean, except in an abstract, theoretical, primal sort of way? Every day I love my daughters more and more intensely, and I can tell you, it bears almost no resemblance to the dutiful, biological sort of love I felt for them in the first weeks. Hence the fact that I can now write a post entitled "newborns suck." (I almost called it "newborns are assholes," but thought that might be going too far.)

I also must admit that I don't understand this spending hours every day "just staring at them," thing people with new babies are always talking about. We did not do that. Sure, we did some gawking here and there. Newborns, in spite of their suckiness, do make some awful cute faces, especially when they sleep. But generally, I just didn't feel the desire to sit and fixate on my babies. And maybe right there is the reason: babies, plural. Maybe when you've got just one baby, it seems more singular and amazing and miraculous. When you've got two, you realize -- hey, I could theoretically pop out any number of these puppies, and they'd all be fabulous and they'd all be ours, but I'm so g.d. tired right now that I think instead of looking back and forth at them like some kind of deranged ping pong spectator, I'm going to put them down in their bouncy seats and take myself a little nap. Wake me up when they're five months old and every time they smile at me, I feel like I'm the luckiest g.d. person in the world.

Newborns. Bah humbug.