The Training Baby
Ieuan Dolby
My kid is only 6months old, yet he has taught me more than I have ever learnt in the last ten years of supposed life’s experience. It is amazing really, that one so young can teach so much, that a ball of squeaking immaturity can give and educate others who are theoretically so much wiser and more learned than an ‘incy’ bit of life that has just popped its head out for a look.
I mean he has taught me nothing startling like quantum physics or rocket science just simple things, an increased awareness of what is around me and a much better understanding of life and how people think and operate as they do! I have over the last twenty years made a career for myself in Marine Engineering, with Diplomas, certificates and degrees falling out of my ears and all backed up by a wealth of hands on experience. But all of this background was so pointless when faced with the pram that we bought!
What is a pram? A pram is a perambulator, a four wheeled vehicle for a baby pushed by one on foot”! Nothing startling there! What my son taught me was that nothing is what it seems in life and that you can have all the certificates in the world but they don’t help with prams! This thing that we purchased was so technologically advanced that it took me three weeks to figure out how to raise the seat! Eiffel and his Tower, Edison and his Light Bulb or even Ferris and his Wheel had nothing on this “Combi” invention! A fully-equipped mean machine, an all-terrain off-the road and all weather state of art vehicular transport that could fold up into handbag dimensions, perform to 80% even with flats on any two of its eight wheels and turn a circle on a dime (for this last action all wheels do have to be at peak performance). It weighed less than two kilos could shrink or expand to suit the size of baby it would carry and it was multi-directional (the baby could be pushed forwards or backwards with the flick of a switch).
After three weeks of trying to assemble the thing I eventually got it in motion. Unfortunately I was so afraid of the thing collapsing with the baby inside that I went out and bought a four wheeled monstrosity that was un-collapsible, omni-directional and could do not much more than be pushed strenuously along the road with a baby inside. It also meant that I didn’t have to carry a puncture repair kit with me!
So however educated and knowledgeable a person is: not all is as straightforward as it seems!
I love my son. He is such a character full of life and energy, full of cheek and smile!
He has taught me that adults are so bogged down with trying to wade through life that we can no longer enjoy that which is around us! We walk around and through daily life with chips, worries and problems weighing us down as if the whole world is resting precariously on our backs. Looking at my son, I realize that what we do in life is crazy; we grow older in a manner that builds problems on top of problems. We are all so desperate to be at the top of the ladder as regards material possessions or status, working harder and harder to earn the money to buy the latest in technological advance, so rushed and harried to get there before the next door neighbor that we forget what life is all about. I buy my son toys, I bought him this all singing, all dancing red thing that had mirrors and handles and all sorts of jingling things on it. The lady in the shop told me that it was the most popular toy they had in stock and that it would keep the baby occupied for hours. When I gave it to my son he looked at it with immediate wonderment, picked it up and neatly dropped it over the side of his cot! He is only six months old for ……..sake! Anyway, he dropped it, thus discarding this ultra modern toy from his life and since then he has neither looked at it nor even acknowledged its presence. He loves the remote control though, even better he loves this tiny little one-dollar squeaky toy that looks like a pregnant hippopotamus!
My son taught me that it is only our own fault that we live the way we do, burdened and weighted down. So much pleasure can be gained from so little, yet as adults we want so much more yet never quite reach a degree of satisfaction or happiness that can be maintained for longer than a day!
My son also taught me that he can fill a nappy faster than I can recover from changing the last one, babies really control their parents rather than us controlling them and screaming is the closest emotion to laughing hysterically!
My son also told me to love unhindered and without thought or care for anything else in the world.
Thanks for everything but the pram son!
About the author: Author and Webmaster of Seamania. As a Chief Engineer in the Merchant Navy he has sailed the world for fifteen years. Now living in Taiwan he writes about cultures across the globe and life as he sees it.