Parenting News

What was only months ago a topic of laughter among cheerful new parents – Namely, the idea of equipping a crib with an inverted plastic bottle with a ball-bearing valve, such as that used for hamsters and small rodent pets – Has, in only three months, evolved into a reasonable concept that has been green-lighted for early trials this week.  Young mother Monica Kale recounts this shift in thinking.
“I remember we were joking about it just a few months ago, when Olivia was four months old. We were exhausted and Kurt said that we should set up a hamster bottle in the crib with formula. We got a laugh out of it, I remember it seemed somehow inhumane.”
“Now I kind of can’t remember what seemed so cruel about it,” said Kale, 30, as she fingered the bag of hardware mounts that Kurt had brought home on his lunch hour. “When Kurt found that the hose clamp fit the bottle perfectly between the crib bars, it just seemed to make sense all the sudden. Olivia gets to drink whenever she wants, and mommy might get a bit of a break. Heh-heh, why not, heh-heh?”
During an earlier discussion with Kurt as he sorted through his screwdrivers at the foot of the crib, Monica was overheard quietly suggesting that placing an additional bottle “maybe low down on the edge of the coffee table… might be worth a shot.”

The remaining spirit of joy for living that was resident within Michael Davis, a first-time father and former sea kayak enthusiast, was finally killed, drained of all life-giving essence, and hung without a shred of dignity from a nearby rusted lamp post on Tuesday evening. The moment occurred as Todd contemplated his nine-month-old, Elijah, emptying a cup of pulpy tangerine juice on the hardwood floor, and circularly wiping his hands throughout the spill.
Newly soul-less Davis, downplaying the incident, mentioned the moment to his friend Todd over the phone in a brief “catch-up” call the next day.
“It sort of occurred to me the other day that, well, yeah, it will be tricky to get out and I’ll be… more occupied than I used to be, I guess.”
“But you know, being a Dad is great, it really is,” he continued, as his friend made periodic affirming replies and Davis’s decomposing spirit limply fluttered from the the pole outside. “We’ll try to maybe figure out a way to each of us get some free time each week, I was thinking, or something.”

Commissioner Stephanie Marmon of the Consumer Child Safety Commission delivered an ad hoc decision late this weekend as screams echoed through the living room in their Cottonwood Valley home.
“Just let her play with the cord, for Christ’s Sake,” she announced from the kitchen doorway. Marmon’s face was reddened and her voice clipped as the decision was announced.
“She’s probably not going to kill herself with it,” she elaborated. As the end of the orange extension cord, thus freed for home use by the toddler, whipped behind her and cracked against a television cabinet,  Commissioner Marmot, a 21-year veteran of Child Safety policy, concluded the ruling. “Whatever,” she said.