A Girl...

In the Know

If I were a rap group I would be Know-It-All by Nature.

That's not to say that thanks to good old Nature, I know it all (because, hoo boy, I sure don't), but that by nature, by birth, by some particular swirl of genetics, by Jove, I am a know-it-all at heart. (This sort of grammar pickle is why hyphens were invented: to keep you from thinking I'm as vain as I was when I was twelve years old and convinced I surely did know everything worth knowing on this big green earth, thankyouverymuch.)

So, although I do know a few things about lots of things, I'm also the first to admit that I know next to nothing about a lot of other things. But then there are the few things I know lots and lots about--in fact, so many lots that I sometimes fall into that old adolescent delusion that I know everything there is to know on a particular subject. Of course, right now I can't think about what those subjects are, having been recently humbled (read on, brave souls), but I do know what happens to me when someone tries to "educate" or "inform" or "advise" me on one of those pet topics: I get defensive, stuttery, know-it-ally. I speak in italics to emphasize how very much I know. I roll my eyes. I annoy everyone, even (especially?) myself.

It was in that spirit that I read the comments pouring in on the entry about how the world would be a happier place if we kept our unsolicited (emphasis! because it's important!) assumptions/speculations/opinions, however well-intentioned, to ourselves when it comes to certain undeniably sensitive subjects. Why did I cringe at some of the comments, even those by people who were in all ways kind, helpful, and understanding? Why did I fight over and over the urge to email people to tell them that what they were saying was wrong/irrelevant/old news to me, the know-it-all, the consummate (ha) expert?

See, as embarrassing as it is to admit it, pregnancy is one of those things I have historically considered myself to be quite the expert on, nevermind the fact that I have never done it myself. (Gawd, I sound like such a jerk.) Still, countless episodes of A Baby Story plus thousands of hours reading mommyblogs plus a handful of unfortunate forays onto messageboards via an ill-thought Googling...surely that all counts for something? Then again, I'm the person who thinks that watching a lot of cooking shows makes up for practical experience, and we all remember how that ended.

Yet, I really do know a lot about it. I know about implantation bleeding and chemical pregnancies and false negatives and endometriosis and uterine fibroids and anovulation and cyclical changes in cervical mucus and all of the symptoms and side-effects of the pregnant woman's condition, even the super-unobvious ones. I know why prenatal vitamins make you constipated (it's the iron) and I know what a mucus plug is and does. I know about nuchal translucency screening and various trisomies and probably way too much about IVF and hCG and TTC in general. Further, I know what meconium is, that umbilical stubs should be kept dry, that five onesies is not enough to get your infant through her first three months. (I just read that post again and I liked what I saw.)

In short, I was a walking, talking font of knowledge about all things obstetric, and it really rubbed me the wrong way to have someone try to school me on it. I'm not saying I was justified, just how I felt.

Last week we received a DVD in the mail from England containing an hour or so of Simon's baby niece's first few days. Whereas in my family, the camcorder only came out for special occasions--Christmas, band concerts, dance recitals--Simon's family has stacks and stacks of tapes that alternate between special occasions and the most random chunks of everyday life. There's the tape of them making pizza for dinner, for example. And the one where they were watching television.

The videos Mel and Kilo took of their first days with baby HJ were long, uncut clips of things like baby's first candy machine, baby's first elevator ride, baby's thousandth nighttime scream-a-thon, baby's thousandth burrito swaddle, as well as shots of them hanging out with the cat, watching Muppets and REM on YouTube, grandma hanging handpainted onesies out to dry on the clothesline, going to a cafe, just sitting around talking about stuff.

One of the clips taken in the hospital was of a staff member showing them how to give the baby a bath. "We could probably figure this out on our own," Mel said, "but we're tired and we don't want to!" If it were me, I probably would have told the nurses that I already know how to bathe my infant (I read about it on the Internet!), and being that there's more than one way to bathe a baby, I'm sure I'd have figured out one of several acceptable and effective methods on my own. The video played and I may have rolled my eyes a little.

But then they started the bath, and I was humbled. Instead of dunking the squirming little chick in a sink full of water, they wrapped her in a towel and held her over a basin and sponged her face and neck and hair and ears with a cotton pad. I'd never seen that before. And then when it came to dry her head, the nurse showed how the particular way they had wrapped the towel around the baby provided for a handy-dandy loose end that could be used to pat away the water while still keeping her body covered and warm. Then they went ahead and dipped the rest of her in the water and much screaming ensued and the clip ended. Not to be melodramatic, but I think I actually learned something new about That Of Which I Know All. (You know I'm being sarcastic, right? Okay, good.)

As I was managing the comments and responding to emails on the entry I linked to waaaaay back at the beginning of this (interminable) post, I joked to someone that the only surefire way to avoid the unsolicited advice (I think the kids are calling it "assvice" these days?) that comes when one embarks upon a Major Life Experience is to just keep it a secret for as long as I can. Perhaps until Junior has graduated high school and been accepted to the college of his choice, on full scholarship? It sounded like a good idea at the time. After all, if there's one thing I hate, it's being told what to do, even if it's a good idea, even if it comes from someone who really does know what she's talking about.

In light of the baby bath video, though, I think I might reconsider keeping my Major Life Experiences to myself. For all the unhelpful/useless/bad/insulting-in-its-obviousness advice I might get, I'm counting on one or two or fifty gems to sparkle out from the heap and change for the better the way I think or act about something I thought I already knew all about. Besides, you guys are smart and pretty and know a whole lot about a whole lot. I mean, who do you think I learned everything from in the first place? It wasn't Jeeves.