Our Child is Perfect

I know, I know. Every parent thinks this - that their child, more than any other child, is perfect. There are all sorts of metrics that people use to measure where their newborn/infant/child/kid/young adult/etc stands in the world. No matter where they rank in this or that activity, parents tend to find a reason to declare that their kid is ahead of the curve, or right on the curve where they should be, or behind the curve in an attempt to build up kinetic energy and slingshot past the other people on the curve.

But our child is different. It's uncanny. I never thought I would be like this but it's really true. Initially, the kid came out crying. I mean, before she opened her eyes she was screaming to the world. I assume the dialog - which I obviously couldn't understand - was something like this, "HOOOOOOLY FUUUUCKING SHIIIIIIIT." Then she opened her eyes.

I mean, credit her for knowing so early that this was a big bad world which she wasn't going to like. She only verified this when she opened her eyes, to the tune of, presumably, "HOOOOOOLY FUUUUCKING SHIIIIIIIT." Again, credit her for knowing what was coming and saying such when she took the time to actually look. From this, I assume she was working exactly as expected - the perfect little child.

The next clue was days 5 through 12, an 8 day span which saw her gain 24 ounces. Again, there are all sorts of spots on the curve but this meant that she was eating well, gaining well, and mommy was producing a lot of milk. Perfect, just perfect. A few days ago I went through the checklist of one month brain development and at 3 weeks she's got all the checkpoints down - the last of which being her being ability to follow daddy's big fat ugly head from side to side. It's pretty cool, actually. I assume the look of stark terror on her face is because she's not sure which expression goes with which mental state. Since she's not crying while she follows me I assume she can only be happy. The stark terror expression assuredly must be some sort of temporary cross-wiring in the cranial circuits that just haven't developed quite yet.

And then last night we hit another major milestone, something that most children never even manage to accomplish, let along do so within their first 23 days of life. Last night, much to my astonishment and amazement, she managed to repeatedly turn her head around 360 degrees while simultaneously spitting fire and brimstone out of her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. While I admit that the decided lack of sleep was exhausting, and the fire engulfing the walls of our house was disconcerting, this particular feat ensured that we had a baby who is head and shoulders ahead of any of these developmental charts they tell you to track your newborn's progress against.

So anyway, I'm tired. We don't have a perfect baby. But in between the stark declarations of, "HOOOOOOLY FUUUUCKING SHIIIIIIIT" last night, she did kinda look cute every once in a while. When you're working with no sleep coupled with fire and brimstone, you really need to key in on the bright spots.