Last night I had a new experience. Several, in fact, all rolled up into one bundle. The bundle is named Leo and he's two and a half months old and he's the son of a couple of friends of ours. Yes, it turns out that I do know someone with a baby after all! It's just that they haven't really been close friends of mine yet; I considered them more friends of friends. Blah blah blah. It's Saturday morning as I write this. One rambles.

My point: Ian and El are great people. They are extremely inspirational parents, coming at this whole process with what seems to be an amazingly relaxed, down-to-earth, natural attitude toward it all. They have a great baby (you can read some references).

Anyway. So El brought Leo over last night for me to babysit. She demonstrated how to put on a cloth diaper. She told me how to hold the milk bottle. She reassured me that he would cry, and it would be aggravating, and if it drove me crazy, I could just put him in his little car seat-carrier, walk away to the farthest room of the apartment, and do something else for a while until he exhausted himself and fell asleep. Then she left.

Left me alone in a room with a baby.

First time ever for me. Practically the first time I'd ever even held one of the squirmy little doodads. I looked at Leo. He seemed most interested in climbing over my shoulder. I let him climb and wondered what I was supposed to do next. He was a sweet baby but hardly scintillating company. I waited for some maternal instinct to kick in and mysteriously make me go all soppy and goo-goo over him, but it didn't happen. I simply liked him. He felt good to hold. Considering that we'd just met and I had no familial ties to him, I was surprised to find myself feeling tenderly toward him, even when he started crying. The crying wasn't so bad. I felt like he and I were in it together, and that it was up to me to arrange the situation in such a way that we'd both feel better.

I put on a CD of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Leo cried. I didn't blame him. I put on ABBA. Leo stopped crying. That Swedish pop is magic, I tell you.

Pär came home. I handed the baby off to him. Leo had been a little fussy at that moment, but he stopped crying in Pär's arms. Pär looked very pleased. Then Leo started crying again.

"Aw damn," I said.

"Did you think I was going to have some special soothing power over babies?" Pär asked.

"Well, you know. I kind of thought you just might."

He was awfully good with the kid, though. We changed the diaper together; it was easy. I didn't do a perfect job, but good enough for a first time. Pär was fascinated by the whole procedure and provided enthusiastic commentary the whole way through. He thought it was fun. This bodes well for the future.

Pär took Leo back on his lap and bounced him gently around for a while, then fed him from the bottle. I went into the kitchen and got myself a glass of milk. When I returned, Pär handed Leo back to me. The baby made a sort of sleepy cooing mumble in my arms.

"Did you hear that? He made the cutest sound," I said.

"Yeah, he talked to me too!" Pär said.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"He said, 'Dogs of war.'"

"'Dogs of war'?"

"Yes. I think that was what he said."

I blinked a few times. "Did he just say it out of the blue, or was it relevant to any context?"

"Well," said Pär, "I was talking to him about Conan."

"Oy. You weren't giving him the 'Trust in steel' speech, were you?"

"No, I was just posing the question, 'What is good in life?' And he said, 'Dogs of war'."

"Hm," I said.

We thought about this for a moment in silence.

"Did you correct him?" I asked. "Or suggest something else in life that might be better?"

"I don't feel it's right to tutor a two-and-a-half month old on what he should or shouldn't believe," Pär said. "I thought it was an interesting answer."

I nodded.

"What would you tell Tot about what is good in life?" I asked, out of curiousity.

"Well... how old is Tot?"

"Let's say she's five."

"I would tell her: Strength, Propriety*, and Humility."

"Really?"

"Yes. They're all qualities she can learn in a good martial arts class, too. You sound surprised."

"I hadn't really thought about it, but... I guess I would have expected you to say something in there about stuff like Kindness and Honor."

"All of that comes from true strength. People are assholes out of weakness."

"What about Love?"

"You show them that love is important, you don't tell them it is. Actually, you show them all these things."

"I think you can tell them it's important too."

"You're right."

There was a pause. I looked down at Leo, now sleeping quietly in my lap.

"'Dogs of war', huh?"

"Yep."

"Well, he's still young."

* Note: the term "Propriety" has a special usage in our home. A thing that we deem to be well done, or indictative of a sane and sensible mentality, is deemed "Proper". While our standards of Propriety may have some overlap with the more common parameters of what is considered proper by the rest of society, the two definitions usually connect only occasionally in passing. [back]