Hipster With A One-Year-Old

Evelyn Is Not Real left the following comment on my "THEM" post from a few days ago:

I think you should write a top ten list of things that people with one-year olds should think about doing as well as ten things people with one-year olds might as well forget about doing. Inquiring minds want to know.

'Kay, I'll give it a shot.

5 Things to Forget About Doing If You Have a One-Year-Old (in no particular order)

5) Forget about making top ten lists. Who has time for that? Five should be sufficient.

4) Forget about going to the movies, or at least going to the movies frequently. I went from seeing a movie every few weeks to seeing a couple movies a year. I miss it a little, but it does make going to the movies more of an event.

3) Forget about eating out. I am a Golden Rule kind of guy, and I never liked it when people brought their screaming kid into a restaurant (particularly if it's clearly not a family restaurant). I'm not about to inflict my child on others unless it's really an emergency. Take-out is still a very viable option.

2) Forget about seeing a lot of live music. Even if you have a spouse who understands that you want to go to shows and is willing to take the kid on his/her own for a night, stamina is an issue. If your kid's not sleeping through the night, the prospect of a headliner not starting until 11PM is truly daunting. Like going to the movies, you don't have to give up going to shows, but it's important to choose wisely.

1) Forget about reading a book a week. Lack of time and lack of sleep makes it unlikely that you're going to tear through your stack of unread books. Obviously you're going to read (you may be reading Green Eggs and Ham several times a week), but you might be reading that 500-page novel for the next three months, so it better be a good'un.

5 Things to Think About Doing If You Have a One-Year-Old (in more of a particular order)

5) Think about consuming your TV in DVD format. The idea of being able to watch a TV show at the same time week after week is almost laughable. I can go weeks without watching anything and then binge on a Saturday night when I can't sleep. I suppose you can download the shows you want to watch, too (I don't condone that) or some things are streamed. Whichever way you do it, TV watching at your own convenience is the only way to go.

4) Think about reading more graphic novels and/or comic books. They're not just for kids anymore. Indeed, my kid won't be allowed access to mine until he's at least 12. There are a lot of quality stories out there, as well as amazing art. It can be difficult to make the mental leap into thinking comics are OK for adults, but anyone who doesn't at least try a few graphic novels out is missing out on a whole genre of pop culture. And importantly, they can be consumed relatively quickly. It can be difficult to know where to start if you walk blindly into a comic shop, but I've been putting up several excellent suggestions on this blog, if I do say so myself.

3) Think about blogging. It's not particularly time-consuming (at least it doesn't have to be), and it can help maintain the illusion that you still have contact with the adult world. That's important.

2) Think about listening to a lot of music. Unless you listen to a lot of death metal or gangsta rap, it's pretty fun listening to music with the kid, and if you're lucky, you're excellent taste will rub off on your offspring (see my recent sievkins post on this theory). And though there's certainly a lot of terrible children's music out there, there's a lot of good stuff, too. Anyone lucky enough to receive a recent mix from me with the song "Funky Butt"--yeah, that's from one of my son's CDs. And my sister recently gave us an album of Woody Guthrie's children's music, which is excellent. It's also fun to watch the little guy shake his diaper-wrapped booty to my music. Maybe, just maybe, he'll be as good a dancer as me.

1) Think about spending as much time as possible just hanging out with your kid. Nothing is more important, or more rewarding, for me anymore. Everything is new to them, and watching a child see or hear or touch or taste something for the first time is the most precious experience I've ever had. I realize this has all been described by others before me, and much more articulately, but it bears repeating. No movie you watch, no song you hear, no book you read will ever compete with watching your kid touch a kitty for the first time. Eventually, I may able to introduce The Bug to my dorky pop culture world (I can't wait to show him Star Wars for the first time), but until then, it's his fascination with everyday things that I'm really enjoying. The things I mentioned in the first list on this post don't feel like sacrifices to me. Having a child just changes one's priorities, and I'm totally cool with that.

These are, of course, simply one aging hipster's opinions. But I hope it clears a few things up for EINR (and for the record, I'll stop mentioning my lack of time for watching/reading stuff in my posts--I suppose it is getting a bet tiresome).