Introducing the Shtunk

Almondjoy — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:42:00 GMT

It was my turn to take Josie to Kindermusik class this week, which I was looking forward to, at least as much as a Jew can look forward to a class with an ominous sounding German name. Because what were we going to do? Just sit around and sing some songs. How complicated could that be? I should have known something was up when I arrived (a couple of minutes late) and the rest of the folks in the class looked up and spotted Josie and a momentary look of absolute dread passed over their faces. But why would anyone dread the appearance of our little angel?

"Okay," the instructor said. "We're going to sing about Little Feather now! This will help our babies with listening and motor skills."

So then she began to sing about Little Feather, who was a Native American kid, I guess, and who wakes up and walks around the forest and hears various noises, such as the hooting of an owl and the scurrying of a squirrel and finally walks into this cave, where there's a black bear sleeping and rather than freaking the fuck out, Little Feather quietly backs away and wanders his way back to bed, because Little Feather is a Native American child who knows the ways of the bear and not a neurotic suburban Jewish father. So the idea was that us parents would sing along and our babies would stop at various moments to listen for the various animals and help us make the sound of the animals, which was a great and noble idea, but didn't quite coincide with Josie's agenda, which was to wreak havoc upon everyone and everything in sight. She headed straight for the instructor and pulled away the doll she was using for demonstration purposes and proceeded to drag the doll around the room, occasionally bumping into other children and/or mothers, while I trailed behind her with that apologetic-yet-helpless look that comes so naturally to fathers.

Then it was time for the xylophone, which was supposed to mean that the little xylophone got passed around the room and all the babies got a chance to bang on it, but meant, in fact, that Josie immediately stole the xylophone and raced around the room while the instructor and I tried to capture her. We finally cornered her and extracted the xylophone from her surprisingly powerful fist, along with the padded drumstick, though she subsequently got ahold of the drumstick and briefly tested the harmonics of another baby's skull.

Then it was time for the scarf song, which was themed around the weather, with the idea that we could play with the scarves in such a manner that our babies would be transfixed. This worked amazingly well for the other parents. But Josie immediately spotted the master supply of scarves on the table and spent the remainder of the song attempting to hoist herself onto the table.

    Kindermusik teacher: Josephine! What are you doing Josephine? Shall we sing about the wind?
    Josephine: Aaaaaaaaanh! Aaaaaaaaaanh! [Translation: I can see those fucking scarves, lady. I want those scarves.]
    Kindermusik teacher (singing): The wind rushes down, rushes all around! C'mon Josephine! Let's sing, let's -- hey, no, that's dangerous, you're going to fall--
    Josephine: Waaaaaaah!

It was when we starting singing about the Tall Ostrich that it dawned on me that Josie was basically that kid, the sweet little psychopath who has absolutely no listening skills and no desire to take part in whatever might be happening with the group and the attention span of a gnat, which means (if this was ever in doubt) she's my daughter, alright.

There are plenty of terms that one might apply here, but the one that strikes me as the most appropriate and forgiving is Shtunk, which means, roughly translated from Yiddish, Little Stinker. It's a term of endearment happily applied to the sort of good-natured troublemaking in which Josie specializes.

Erin and I are trying not to freak out about the fact that she's "really active." We love that she's kind of a hellraiser. And we get that she doesn't mean any harm when she begins, for instance, banging on another kid's skull. On the contrary, she's just excited. But the thing that sort of concerns me a little is just the basic capacity to slow down and listen, to lock into a narrative.

For those of you with "active babies" is there anything you can recommend? We don't want to go all Nurse Ratchet on Josie. But we'd love it if we could find a way to engage her attention that doesn't involve petty theft or aggravated battery.

Baby Daddy : shtunk

Introducing the Shtunk