Your baby can read, for three easy payments of $99 (plus S&H)

I saw something yesterday that made me do a double-take. It was a commercial for something called, “Your Baby Can Read.” Apparently it’s a combination of books and recordings and visual software that teaches your infant-to-toddler-age child to read.  Now I’m all for reading to your child and teaching her everything you can. I believe that helps a child appreciate the written word and hunger for learning. But a baby reading? I don’t know.

I have two children. They are 19 and 21 years old, but I still vividly remember what they were like as babies. Like most other kids, I could have easily put them in a bucket and just hosed them off occasionally for the first 12 months of life. They took food in; they gave some back. Yes, they developed skills and awareness and emotional expression during that critical first year, but I can pretty much guarantee you that they were not reading-ready. They are both smart, bright, delightful children, but no way were they going to read to me during that first year of life. As a young mom, I felt lucky not to have done anything that resulted in injury or death to them in that year; I sure wasn’t going to muddy the waters by trying to teach them to read.

As they got a bit older, a day without either of them ingesting discarded cigarette butts or munching on dog food was a good day.

Part of this commercial (an infomercial, really) spotlighted a mother holding her slobbering little prodigy in her lap, regurgitating words that had been hammered into her little head by a robotic male voice. Mom just cooed and giggled in delight as her little “reader” uttered barely understandable words in response to flash cards. What Mom failed to realize is that she could have taught the little girl completely inaccurate words to correspond with each card. “CAT = HULA HOOP” or “TRUCK = SWORD.” A baby has no frame of reference.

True reading requires the ability to both decode a word AND process the meaning simultaneously. Later on, it also requires the ability to comprehend and retain those words, but maybe that’s the next phenomenon to hit the market – “Your Child Can Retain and Comprehend.”

In our society, we are so rushed to push our kids past all the others, to somehow give them an edge over all the other kids with whom they’ll compete throughout their lifetimes. To give the marketing mastermind(s) behind “Your Baby Can Read” credit, they were smart enough to capitalize on this fact. Still, I’m holding out for something really spectacular to come along, like “Your Baby Can Vacuum” or “Your Baby Can Prepare Your Taxes.” When I see either of those, I’m in.

How on earth did we raise our kids in the stone age?

I have been invited to a baby shower. I haven’t figured out yet whether I’m excited about it or I’m dreading it. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to one and even then, I felt so out-of-touch with what’s going in the baby world these days. Truth: I felt like a dinosaur. How on earth did I raise my children without all the gadgets and contraptions on the market today?




At any rate I need to buy a gift, so I went to the well-advertised baby utopia superstore down in the city. No boring, run-of-the-mill gift for this little one, no way. I may have been out of the baby business for a couple of decades, but that doesn’t mean I have to flaunt that fact.



We didn’t even have a baby superstore twenty-two years ago, when I was patiently awaiting the arrival of my first bundle of joy. I suppose we really didn’t need one. Typical shower gifts back in the old days were clothes, toys, bathing and diapering paraphernalia and – for expectant grandparents and well-to-do-aunts and uncles – strollers, furniture and stuff like that.



This shiny, bright baby superstore in Atlanta is three floors of massive, overwhelming square footage crammed with kid stuff and subdivided by stages of development. Did you know that there is a pre-learning stage? I always assumed that was the nine or so months leading up to the big event (and for some children, a few years after), but apparently there are a few weeks after birth that officially qualify, as well. Go figure.



Primary colors screamed at me as soon as I entered through the sliding doors. Bells tinkled, choo-choos chugged, clowns cackled and stuffed animals hung like old west bank robbers along the entire length of one mile-long wall. I scanned the aisle markers looking for the “newborn” section.



I followed the signs to the area of the store devoted to brand new babies. I always feel a pang of nostalgia and yes, even a little bit of sadness when I think back to those days and my own children. Fortunately, those thoughts are almost always shattered by someone else’s little darling shrieking and snapping me out of it. As I age, the length of my fuse seems to likewise shorten. Anyway, back to my shopping.



The first twenty or so items I came across were completely unfamiliar to me; I had no idea what they’d be used for or how they might help baby or mom. I felt as out of place here as I usually feel in the Home Depot power tool section.



I looked through shelf after shelf of items that, to me anyway, were ridiculous and more of a bother than a help. There was the pee-pee teepee, a little tent sort of contraption that is supposed to prevent baby boys from accidentally spraying mom or dad during a diaper change. Hey, that’s just part of the deal when you have a boy, folks. There was a little inflatable ring that you’re supposed to put around a baby’s neck in a pool – a no-fail way to prevent drowning. It looked inhumane, like a cross between a whiplash brace and the lampshade dogs wear after surgery.



There were fake rubber hands that are supposed to simulate swaddling or cuddling (first thought: yeah, but who holds the hands in place?). Grotesque. There was a baby bottle cover, a stuffed animal-looking thing that has a nipple coming out of its mouth. Picture a mama bird regurgitating in her baby’s mouth.



There were gadgets designed to keep parents from smelling, touching or paying attention to their babies at all, ever. In fact, if you bought one of each item in this section alone, you’d never have to see, hear, smell or talk to your kid until he’s at least two. Where’s the fun in that?



I decided on a few gifts that are probably going to look boring and unimaginative at the shower Saturday. I bought mom a “What to Expect During the First Year” book (they wrote that one way after mine were school-age). I bought a couple of packs of diapers, some monogrammed baby linens (more for keepsakes than anything else – the kid’s initials will be the same no matter the sex), some adorable little newborn clothes for the little one in gender-neutral colors, and a gift card for what will be a much-needed dinner out that the parents can use a couple of weeks after Junior arrives. They’ll appreciate that one the most.



I’m probably just jealous of all the cool stuff out there but still, a lot of what I saw just looked like more of a bother than a help. I will say that those puffy, colorful little fabric high chair liners I see everywhere are awesome; I wish they had those when mine were little. All I used were anti-bacterial wipes when we took our little ones out to eat. Necessary, but not much fun.



No matter what stage of parenting you’re currently in, what was the coolest, most helpful gadget you had for those early years?

It's tough being sick

OK my turn to whine. I'm not much of a whiner, really, but when I get my chance, I take it by the horns and hold on tight.  I thought I was out of the woods when I overcame my annual bout with pneumonia in February this year. Guess I was wrong. April and May bring strange and terrible pollens to the state of Georgia. These pollens have frightening effects on southerners.

Now I'll be the first to admit:  my husband babies me shamelessly when I'm sick. He really does, and that is unusual for a man. I'll also admit:  I suck it up. I love it. Sorry, but that's the truth. I don't think I ride it for longer than it's intended, but I sure do enjoy being babied every now and then.

My husband Marc is really the exception to the rule of most men. I'm going to try to tread lightly here, but men are terrible patients. They are. I have been with men who could have had a cold - a common, everyday, ordinary cold. To hear it from them though, they have an unnamed version of tuberculosis and pneumonia. No identified cure, no known treatments except constant pampering and babying. And they do not want to suffer alone, or in silence. No, no.....they want to lay themselves out in a common area, preferably a busy one, so that they can stop all household activity dead. Translation:  the spotlight is on them.

I am 50 now. I am onto the whole, "baby me and make me feel special" thing. In truth, my husband is just naturally giving and kind, so I don't have to wave my arms and say "look at me! look at me!" He just does it anyway. And I try to do it for him when he's sick. Thank goodness, he's not the sickly type.

Oh, wait, I think I need to turn over. I hope he's around to re-adjust the blanket for me when I do.