I guess she’s reached that stage in child development where everything around her has to be observed, tested and experienced via oral means. No matter how grimy, hairy or visually objectionable – into the mouth it goes. Somewhere down the line, she figured out her hands can be useful in guiding and transferring such items toward the oral cavity. So this she does.
Size does not matter. Newspapers, book corners, plastic babymats, fists full of other people’s hair, pillows and blankets. Every object in her visible range exists to be compacted and maneuvered into her waiting mouth.
Saliva seems to be a constant companion for babies at this age. Our daughter loves making gurgling noises, helped along by a foam cap of spittle that’s constantly vibrating around her lips. Everything she gets near is immediately coated in spit, from her fingers and arms to whatever comes near her face. Offer a finger or wrist and she will instantly wet it down. Perhaps saliva is the lubricant of play for a baby, a way to keep everything constantly shiny and interesting. Maybe it’s also a kind of branding, a systematic marking of items she considers important enough to drool over.
We go through about six bibs a day. I didn’t think bibs – outside of a lobster house, anyway – could get this drenched in drool. But hers do. All her stuffed toys receive similar treatment. We’ve had to blow-dry Ernie, Rubber Duck, and Mr. Snowman countless times to make them usable again.
Toys are indeed a strange arsenal. Parents need lots of them to keep babies entertained or at least distracted for a few minutes each day, long enough to use the bathroom or make a phone call for help. Any demand for time beyond that is just kidding yourself.
Our baby’s favorite toy at the moment is an eight-inch square cut out from a bag of Chee-tos. Despite the more expensive and interesting toys accumulating around us – the Fischer-Price Remote Control Mobile, the Graco Activity Gym – this is apparently the toy that does it for her. The shiny lettering and silvery backing surface are capable of holding her attention for a full 11 minutes, which is a hell of a long time for a five-month-old. She loves to crumble this snack bag, hear it crinkling in her hands. But most of all she likes sticking it into her face. Fortunately, she can’t get the whole thing into a ball small enough to cause us any worry.
Another nice thing about the Chee-tos bag: Once it gets worn out, you can easily replace it through more snacking.
As a parent, you quickly learn how to deploy baby toys like a general in battle, marching out the minor ones while holding back the "big guns" for late in the day. You group them sometimes: The stuffed things for when she’s calm and easygoing, the heavier ones – rattles and plastic keys – for when she’s bored or flailing around. You stockpile toys for when she grows malcontented, which is nearly always.
Toys become obsolete at an alarming rate, however. What was a manic thrill only last week gets batted away with fierce energy by a five-month-old. Our baby has a "cute" way of showing us she’s had enough of a certain toy for the day: she casually holds it out at arm’s length and just lets it drop over the side of the stroller, like it’s an offensive turd or something.
So we find ourselves trying to stretch extra mileage out of every plaything by rationing its use, not overwhelming baby with too many "fun choices." When she gets fidgety lying beneath the Activity Gym, which is a kind of plastic swing set with shiny colored objects dangling above a baby’s head, we try to pull a fast one on her – we simply turn the gym around 180 degrees, in a desperate move to fool baby for another 10 minutes. It’s pathetic.
Toys are handy, yes, but we’ve found that babies much prefer human interaction. They crave it, they need it, they demand it. Babies sense when you’re flailing, too. They want constant entertainment and amusement, and they know when your act is dying. At this early age, our daughter can deliver the kind of disconcerting stare that some supermodels work a whole lifetime to perfect. She stares because we’re doing the Macarena or the Las Ketchup Dance in front of her, clowning and goofing in an effort to distract her from whining and fidgeting. We tell ourselves she’s not staring at us because we look ridiculous.
A lot of toys end up MIA, too. What with trips to the doctor and dinners out and moving the baby around the house, things get misplaced, lost in action. You find yourself asking each other, a lot, "Where is her Twist ‘N Learn? And Mr. Wobble? Where’s Mr. Wobble?? I need Mr. Wobble now, damn it!" There’s nothing so disquieting to the human spirit as watching a roomful of adults frantically searching the sofa cushions for a plastic rattle.
I guess we’ve learned that, in absence of all the A-list baby items, parents must learn to improvise. They just have to make do. Thanks to some divine plan, a baby can be equally contented with a P5,000 automatic swing set or with much simpler diversions, such as a pair of human hands. That’s why we tell ourselves that, really, it’s okay to reach for the Chee-tos bag.