Baby Boot Camp, or Interview with the Unborn (As of Yet)
"Okay, you know, the biggest thing I'm afraid of?
"If you're thinking cars, you'd be wrong. I'm most afraid of baby boot camp, to be honest with you. I'm afraid of you, my beautiful mother, bringing me to a class full of other mothers, all clad in leotards, or whatever women wear to work out in these days. I'm afraid of us introducing ourselves, nodding and smiling and cooing at each other, in our pre-sweaty state, slowly getting into the workout, jogging, bouncing, stretching, getting heated up bit by bit. I'm really afraid, then, of us being in full swing, you jogging, Baywatch-style, with me, in place, in front of the mirror. I see you and me both in a sweatband headband. It's not pretty. They're terry cloth headbands. Don't ask me where I got these visions from, I have no idea. Maybe it's Dad.
"And then, then the worst happens. My worst fear is realized: You place me gently on the floor, probably on some sort of mat, a half-inch thick piece of foam with little ridges that feel kind of funny against the back of my head, my very sensitive head. I like this, I can see the ceiling, which has all sorts of lights on it, bright lights dotting the expanse kind of like that polka dotted giraffe you or someone else got me. And then, hey! I see you, looming in over me, like I'm in my crib, only I'm not in my crib, I'm on the floor, on this mat thing. I smile, because that's what I do when I see you, my Mom. See Mom: smile, see Mom: smile. Only then your face starts rushing towards me. You're breathing out, because that's what you're supposed to do when you're lowering yourself down into a push-up. Into a push-up! Your breath, your rushing face, it's all too much, oh man! She's not gonna stop! Tuck and roll! Tuck and roll! But I can't tuck and roll! I'm a baby! I have no muscle control! I only know about the 'see Mom: smile' thing! What do I do! And then, suddenly, I must have blanked out, because you're zooming away, sucking in your breath, little beads of sweat collecting like B-17 bombers, waiting to drop down, splattering me, leaving carnage in their wake. And the smile, I notice, is frozen on my face. I may be cooing, but not in my normal, happily cooing manner. I'm cooing because I've just awakened, and my brain has yet to relinquish control of my cooing motors to the rational part of my brain. No, it's the fear-soaked portion of my brain that has the reins, still, and is cooing only because it can't think of anything else to do. And there you come again! Aaaaaaaggggh!
"And then, in the midst of all of this, just when I think I'm acclimated, I've seen your face dip up and down again and again (when I haven't been blacked out), and then it happens. Your arms had been quivering that little bit more and more. The sweat, which had been collecting, is just falling with abandon now, splashing down on my little face, which is no longer enjoying this whole 'looking up at the ceiling and smiling' thing. I sensed the quiver through the mat I was lying on. Lying? Or laying? Anyway, I'm too young to get into those grammar rules just yet.
"So I'm there, no longer liking the on-my-back-on-the-mat position, and I can sense the quiver in your arms, like dogs and cats can sense when an earthquake or a thunderstorm are coming. And then it happens, like the sharp crack of a tree falling in the forest. And down you come, hurtling towards me, poor tiny little me! And SPLAT!
"Now I know you may not be paying attention right now. In fact, I think you're sleeping. You're not moving around a whole lot, at any rate, which I've taken to mean either it's go-time for me, at which stage I wiggle like the Dickens, and then you react my hugging me a little, or I wiggle like the Dickens and you just sit there, still doing nothing. I figured out after the first couple that it wasn't me. It was you, in a sense. Sleeping. Which is cool, don't worry about it.
"But if you aren't sleeping, don't worry if you're listening on one of those baby fetal heart monitor things. My heart's just beating a little fast because it scares me, even to just think about it. Maybe I've got too vivid an imagination. You can't blame me. After all, I got it from you or Dad. Or both of you, more likely than not.
"So that's what worries me. Not the birth so much. That should be a piece of cake. 'Go towards the light, the liiiiight,' you say. No problemo. Got it, chief. I'm on it. But Mom, Mom, I'm scared of baby boot camp."
Summary
disclaimer:
We hope you enjoyed this week's issue.
If you didn't, maybe you'll enjoy this. Even if you did enjoy this week's issue, maybe you'll enjoy this, too.
Then again, you might not. Because we're talking to a (probably) very limited group of people out there.
If you have Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (or if that makes some sort of vague sense to you), you can now download a spiffy new Sane Magazine screensaver from the Accessories page! If you don't have what we said just before, there, you can still visit the page, and check out a Quicktime movie of what the thing looks like, in case you were thinking of doing that thing with the thing we mentioned, or figure movies will persuade you to do whatever it is we were talking about. Or just want to watch a pretty movie. It's all up to you. Whatever you do, know that our technical guys who do all sorts of geeky things with computers were really excited about it, and they're generally... well, they get excited about a lot of things, most of them pretty ridiculous things to get excited about, but still, they got excited. So maybe you will, too.
Enjoy. One way or another.
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