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3 things l know about babies

My Man

Mid May, 2011, as I carried baby Chelsea out of Mater hospital towards the car, right there at the reception of the hospital, we ran smack-bang into Cardinal John Njue, head of the Catholic Church in Kenya. He took the infant Chelsea in his arms and blessed her.

The mom took that as a sign of good fortune, I joked that he had seen me carrying the baby, and performed a spontaneous exorcism. In these papal days, I want to talk blessings and babies because my crazy upstairs neighbour Beryl got one.

In the office, I saw the glow with which our HR honcho lady Pauline Kiraithe returned, ecstatic about her baby, Ella. My editor here Christine looks most animated telling tales of the (mis)adventures of Sasha.

And the hard heart of Itindi seemed melted, for a bit, as she waxed about her mother's return in the form of a little baby called Sori. What I wondered was – when exactly did she write the baby piece, ama she sneaked out of maternity to a nearby cyber café. With God, and Wanga, yote yawezekana.

What I want to tell Itindi, from my own experience, is that our moms seldom make their grand returns in the form of their grand-daughters (boys and dads, yes). Little girls, no. But I would be interested to hear from readers (mail below) on this so I can further the hypothesis.

Look at Chelsea, for example. My late mom was Mocheche, so I abbreviated the name to 'Cheche' and stuck it onto 'Slavia' (which simply means 'the Russian') so that Chelsea's second name is Checheslavia. So far, she acts nothing like my mother.

Mom was a quiet woman, Cheche is pretty noisy, including in class. My mom was serious, Cheche is quite playful, and where mom hid her intellectualism, Cheche is a clever showoff who will not accept help on homework assignments from kindergarten.

"Let me show you," she will say, wresting exercise book to clear off her number work. "Ahh! let me read," she'll say, snatching the story book to struggle with the words, and show you who is Little Miss Independence.

Because she is my noisy, nosy upstairs neighbour who is ever snooping into my house affairs, I will get into Beryl's baby business and give her unsolicited advice about Sori, based on my own experiences.

Wean children off breast milk as soon as you can, and when it is nutritionally safe to do so, so they get a sense of emotional independence early. Past two, I don't think a child should be asking for 'nyonyo,' and at three years of age, they should be in nursery school.

Get the child her own cot, also as soon as one can, to give them territorial independence and so they get a sense of personal space and place early.

It is very disturbing to find a boy in Standard One who still wants to climb into his parents' bed to sleep in-between them, a case I recently heard about. Then you wonder why he'll be living in your SQ, next to you, in 2055, in Buruburu, when he is 45.

Never mind about the deadbeat dad, if there is one, especially if the baby was unplanned. Don't feel sorry for yourself, or engage in meaningless wars. If he is a man worth his salt, he will be back, maybe when baby is six or so, to fix things up. No use burning bridges with bile, battle and bitterness.

Take the child to Sunday school, but beware of fundamentalist relatives and radical ideologues.

While I was away in Indonesia, Cheche went to stay with her grandma who lives with a crazy Christian, as in 'end times are nigh!' kinda crazy. Now, this whole week, she has been asking me at night as I read her the bedtime story – "Tony, Shetani anakuja leo?"

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