Kamikaze Baby Ninja

I’ve been dreading this.  I knew it was coming.  They all warned me and I saw it with my own eyes.  Their kids were morphing into these strange little beings.  I saw it and I was scared.  My friends, once just sleep deprived parents, were now wide-eyed, paranoid zombies. Skittish at the slightest movement.

It was like a slow motion train barreling toward you.  Get out of the way, you yell.  But you can’t get out of the way. No, you can’t.  Don’t waste your precious energy. Or the faux caffeine and sugar induced high you call energy.  You’re going to need it.  Just stand there and let it hit you. Choo choooo.

Don't let that face fool you, he'll run your ass over.

I watched as my own sweet child mutated into a kamikaze baby ninja. That’s right.  I’m now the mother of a kamikaze baby ninja and this is a warning for all you other parents.  It will happen to you too.

It begins when your once floppy headed, immobile baby discovers how to move. 

My kamikaze baby ninja emerged at lightning speed.  Sure the belly crawl was cute.  Yeah, it started off all innocent.  Rolling across the floor to get where he wanted.  For all of 2 weeks it was damn right aww inducing adorable and then the genius figured out how to coordinate these movements to get where he wanted. And my life changed forever.

I am the mother of a kamikaze baby ninja.

For some reason, when a baby becomes mobile he begins trying to off himself in creative ways. Call it a developmental milestone, call it mere curiosity.  I call it shit my pants terrifying.

First, he started rolling himself over on his stomach at night.  Besides the gajillions of pediatricians, experts, websites and other mommy terrorists who convinced me if my child slept on his stomach ever in his whole entire life, I was the worst mother on the planet and he was going to suffocate himself--my little kamikaze baby ninja decided to sleep face down.  He buried his cute little button nose right down in that mattress and stopped my heart each time I turned on the video monitor to check on him.


After a dozen or so nights of creeping in his room, turning his head ever so slightly, inevitably waking him up, dealing with a pissed off screaming child convinced the world as he knew it was ending, rocking, nursing, more rocking, a little bouncing, some pleading and finally getting him to go back sleep only to find him 30 minutes later face down in the mattress, I gave up.  My kid was sending me a clear message:  Quit messing with me woman!-I wake you up-you don't wake kamikaze baby ninja!  Dire consequences await you! My punishment is 7 more months of frequent night wakings of his choosing. I don't think the punishment fits the crime, but my pleas fall on cute tiny deaf ears.

Lesson one: never wake a kamikaze baby ninja.

Second, he started to crawl.  He can now get where he wants, when he wants.  The days of going to the bathroom for two minutes and coming back to find my child exactly where I put him has officially ended.  Sad. Remember those public service announcements in the 80s? “Its 10pm, do you know where your children are?” Judgmental much? Well, a kamikaze baby ninja mom’s version is “It’s 2.3 seconds later, do you know where your child is?”. He's probably under your kitchen sink tasting the Old English.

Today I got back from the bathroom and he was gone. It was just a pee too!  Cue the mini heart attack. I hear the distinctive rumbling of a kamikaze baby ninja getting into things he shouldn’t. I followed the sound until I found him.  He'd crawled across the room, climbed on the bottom of the end table, knocked off the books and was trying to chew on the computer power cord.  My kamikaze ninja has a fascination with chewing on power cords and the unique knack of finding a well hidden one.It’s a special kind of fun for me.

Lesson two: I will never pee in peace again. And whoever invented baby leashes was a genius and had a kamikaze baby ninja child for sure.

Third, the launching of oneself off of and into furniture, floors and any other hard surface is kamikaze baby ninja 101.  They are experts at it. Black eyes are the proudly worn medals of honor for kamikaze baby ninjas.  If you see one, please don't call CPS on his mother.  Buy her a bottle or two or six of wine.

Put it in mommy's sippy cup.

Lesson three: Take bets on when he'll get his first set of stitches and put half immediately into a health savings account.  Then invest the other half in stockpiling Franzia.

Fourth, the finding of and subsequent eating of any object at tiny baby arms length is a full time job of a kamikaze baby ninja. iPhones, toes (mine or his), sticky unknown substances on the floor, dog food, bugs (dead or alive), dog hair, the bottom of daddy's shoes, invisible poisons naked to the adult eye.  Minute amounts of anything inedible and dangerous is the primary diet of kamikaze ninja babies.  I assume they naturally develop pica at this stage.  


My kamikaze baby ninja has a particular palate for clumps of dog hair.  Digging out wads of dog hair out of a baby's mouth and hands takes a new level of patience.  The dog hair somehow actually multiply as you pull it out, I kid you not. Try it.

Lesson four: Poison control’s number is 1-800-222-1222.

And thus, such is my new life as a parent of a kamikaze baby ninja and I invite you to witness my adventures and point and laugh at me freely.