Three weeks ago, my wife and I had a son.  His name is Ivan.  We are first-time parents.  We are not afraid (at least that’s what we’re saying in our press release).

 

My wife and I are an interracial couple.  She is Black, and I am White.  Actually, she’s sort of a reddish-dark brown, and I am a beige-ish, off-white color.  Ivan . . . well, I’m not really sure what color he is.  My wife thinks he’s the color of Melba Toast.

 

I am Jewish, and my wife, who was raised Lutheran, converted to Judaism.  So not only is Ivan biracial, he’s also Jewish.  This makes him a minority many times over.  I am hoping that we will get special gifts, prizes and scholarships because of his elite, special, ultra-minority status.

 

Ivan, though very much a human baby, eats as voraciously as a wild animal.  He has a small birthmark on his back, and I’m beginning to wonder if that isn’t the mark of the wolf.  I haven’t observed his behavior during a full moon yet, but believe me, I will be keeping a watchful eye on him.  Raising a baby is difficult enough. Raising a baby werewolf seems extremely problematic.  For example, some people worry about getting a pet when they have a baby for fear that the pet may injure the baby.  I am worried about just the opposite.  I worry that Ivan would eat the pet like some sort of wolf-baby who didn’t know his own strength.

 

Ivan now weighs just over 9 pounds.  My wife and I both weigh well over 100 pounds (By law, I am not allowed to tell you how much my wife weighs, though it’s nothing crazy.  She’s very trim, and I am not a giant by any stretch of the imagination).  In any event, we both outweigh Ivan by quite a bit.  And, yet, somehow it seems that he is very much in control of the situation.

 

In addition, though he has not yet cart-wheeled, dunked a basketball, or hit a homerun, Ivan does possess a great deal of physical prowess.  He spits up better than any drunken college student I’ve ever seen.  And, he poops like someone who had Ex-Lax and prunes for breakfast.  I realize that this makes him sound bulimic, but I assure you nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, with his short, bent limbs and enlarged, breast-milk-fed belly, when lying on his back, Ivan looks like he could be a very full baby crocodile.

 

Ivan, like some other newborns, finds English to be a very limiting language.  He also informed me that English, with its origins in the Germanic languages, is a bit too guttural and consonant-heavy for his tastes.  Accordingly, he prefers to communicate using a variety of cries, chants and gestures.

 

After careful study, I have ascertained the meaning of these cries, chants and gestures and, now, for those of you who are following Ivan’s progress and/or who have newborns of your own who may come from the same Planet as Ivan (that being Planet Uterus), I offer you here the:

 

“Top 10 Comments Our Newborn, Biracial and Jewish Son Makes Every Night (or would if he chose to speak English).”

 

1.  Where’s the boob?

 

2.  I have gas

 

3.  Uh, hello?  This diaper is not going to change itself.

 

4.  Where’s the boob?

 

5.  No, I don’t want you, I want Mommy.

 

6.  No, I said Mommy.

 

7.  Listen, pal, do you lactate?  I said Mommy.

 

8.  Stop watching me while I eat.

 

9.  How many times do we have to go through this.  When I cry it means “hungry.”  When I cry, but with a little bit of alarm, it means “gas.”  When I cry, but with a little basso profundo it means “diaper change.”  When I cry with a little extra treble, it means “tired.”  When I cry, but a little plaintively, it means “I am melancholy, as I am worried about the economy and global warming.”

 

10.  Okay, it’s enough with the “Little Lenny Kravitz” jokes already.