Babby Talk 04.11.24
Tackling everyone's fears, a unique springtime idea, moms in the mosh pit, and the perfect pot of rice. Among a few other things.
Before you become a parent, things like “hand foot and mouth” probably don’t strike you as particularly terrible-sounding. After becoming a parent, you fairly quickly begin to internalize a regular sense of dread about what plague will befall your family next. It is not an if situation.
And so begins today’s tale of lice. When it came for us, it was indeed actual bugs crawling through hair. If any creepers want to see a picture, click here. By all means do not click if you are happy to not get up close and personal, but just in case you need a future reference point. There were vacuums and combs and sprays and more vacuums suctioning heads. Our heads.
The lice were dealt with, but not before being inadvertently passed on to friends we were hanging out with. And for that, I felt shame. I was the mom with the kid with lice, I brought them around with us, I shared them freely and unknowingly with my friends. I threw the lice a going away party at the expense of my loved ones! Even though someone passed them on to us, I felt the personal burden of plague-spread. I was grateful when our friends took it in stride and had no weird feelings, but I still harbored some guilt.
What’s up with that? I think it’s just one of those things that parents get blamed for when it makes absolutely no sense. Sure, maybe some parents see lice and send their kids to school with a devil may care attitude, but I really do not think that is happening. Still, the blame must lie with someone, right? I’ll say it here just so you can remember when this happens to you: you are not to blame for the lice, you have done nothing wrong. I know it won’t erase the feelings, but it might help add some perspective to a stressful situation.
The lice will come and go, as with all the other plagues of early childhood. But the shame and blame for parents who are really just doing their best, that seems like it’s not going away anytime soon. -Court
7 things at least somewhat related to life with kids
Shop: Flowers for spring is an original idea we had and now we are sharing with you.
Read: We do not particularly want to pass on our irrational fears to our children. Spiders are good, after all. Someone’s gotta cull that mosquito population. And the ocean is beautiful, it’s not unpredictable and filled with unknown creatures. We, um, know
explains a concept called “immunization against fear learning” that can help set us up to avoid passing our aforementioned not entirely irrational fears on to our kids. Maybe it could work for you?mostlotssome of them!
Wear: On the day the Jeremy Allen White Calvin Klein ads appeared, a tsunami of “yes, chef!” social media captions flooded the internets. So now we can’t use it anymore. But we can hop on the fun pants cooking clothing bandwagon by suggesting some checkered pants for your budding gastronome (gastro gnome?).
Cook: Speaking of cooking. Even if you own a rice cooker, you should probably still acquire the valuable life skill of learning how to make perfect stovetop rice. Inferior rice does no one any good. Carter’s Cooking has you covered.
Look: Imagine if your mom came to Lollapalooza and took pictures of you and your friends there. Peggy Nolan was that mom. She photographed her 7 children (!!!!!!!) growing up outside of Miami from the 1980s onwards and her pictures are just wonderful.
Join: Today marks the start of Black Maternal Health Week. BMHW was founded by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance to build community and inspire activism to advance Black maternal health equity. Learn more about their work and how to get involved with local events here.
Donate: Send back used but undamaged eclipse viewing glasses to be reused for moar eclipses!
Something we have to agree with:
A few more for the road:
Are more babies born on a full moon? Nope.
We all love Baby Elephant Walk, now we can enjoy baby elephant run.
Turn bathtime into a super chill rave.
Thanks for reading. Please email all constructive feedback with the subject line “I hate you I wish you weren’t my mom.” See you very soon.
Court + Grace