Krista's Do's and Don'ts for Raising a Baby

This week I am phoning it in kids. As I write this, it is Sunday night, and I am frantically packing to go out of town tomorrow for a few days with my mom. We are taking a much needed mother/daughter road trip getaway to The Appalachians.

But, I really am trying to stick to a consistent posting schedule. As such, I am copying and pasting an old chapter I wrote from my long abandoned book of essays. It has never been read, and I am the one who wrote it, so it still counts, OK?! I am scheduling this to publish on Tuesday, which is the day I am trying to normally publish them (which please don’t hold me to.)

I think I wrote this in maybe 2015 or 2016 or 2017 or 2018? A friend of mine was pregnant, and we were talking on the phone. We got to talking about how much people tell mom’s how to raise their children, and how much of the unsolicited advice is conflicting. So I told her I would come up with the only list of absolute rules for taking care of a brand new baby. As someone who has never had children, I believe I am uniquely unqualified to do this. So, here we go…

• Don’t throw your baby on a pile of broken glass

• Do smile at your baby

• Don’t wrap your baby in wrapping paper without at least leaving a breathing hole

• Do let your baby watch whatever TV shows or movies they want. They don’t understand them. They are babies.

• Don’t put a blanket over your baby’s head and hold it over a balcony (we all learned that the hard way)

• Don’t hand your baby the plunger when the toilet is clogged. Not only do they not know what to do with it, but they also lack the muscle and motor skills to manage the problem anyways.

• Don’t confuse the cat’s litter box for your baby’s crib. That would be bad on a lot of levels

• Do sing to your baby. Even if you have a bad voice. They won’t care. They won’t know any better. It is the thought that counts.

• Do take a lot of pictures of your baby to always remember.

• Don’t post every single one of them. Use a little discernment and spare us every single one. No one cares as much as you do

• Do remember your baby’s name. It would be really embarrassing not to.

• Don’t forget your baby’s name (I really can’t state this enough.)

• Do take Anne Geddes style baby photos with them in pumpkins and watermelons and whatnot. Honestly, those always have been and always will be cute and will never go out of style.

• And while you are at it, do take picture of yourself in the pumpkins and watermelons. Why not? YOLO

• Also, while you are at it, do a boudoir photo shoot for your baby. Highly inappropriate? Yes. But something not one else has done….

• Do vaccinate your baby. Baby Polio is so not totes adorbs. (Man, I had no idea when writing this in 2015/2016/2017/or 2018 how controversial this one would be when I finally published it in 2023.)

• Don’t have a gender reveal party when you are pregnant. There are only two options. So anticlimactic. Also, you aren’t allowed to be disappointed with either one of the outcomes. Plus, let’s be woke and realize gender is a social construct.

• Do have a gender reveal party later in life if your child realized they are trans and wants you to throw them a gender reveal party.

• Do read your baby Buzzfeed articles at night to fall asleep (Is Buzzfeed still a thing in 2023?)

• Don’t take your baby to a Grateful Dead concert. Do those even still happen?

• Do buy your baby a ticket to a Taylor Swift concert. Then realize that would be way too loud for a baby, and give the ticket to me instead.

• Do wear matching sequin tracksuits with your baby

• Do dress your baby up like Kevin spilling the pot of chili on The Office for Halloween. IMO, this is literally the only reason to have a child.

• Do show your baby scary movies from a very young age. Build up their tolerance early so they aren’t huge lame wuss’ as an adult.

• Do name your baby Krista. No matter whether it is a boy or girl or non-binary.

• Do make me the Godparent

• Don’t expect me to do anything with that title though

• Don’t get your baby a neck tattoo

• Don’t throw your baby like a football

There you go! As long as you follow these rules, and only these rules, to a T - you will be an excellent parent.

I hope you enjoyed this nonsense. It was a nice break from my depressing long-haul posts, right?

See ya next week when I am back from Eastern Kentucky with my mama. Wish me luck. This is a lot of time to spend in a car with that woman.