As a veteran parent, I can tell you that Babies Rule. This is not what you think – what you are thinking is that babies are excellent and wonderful things, which is true.

No, what I mean is that Babies Rule – your life, your decision making, your ‘free time’, and everything else in between.  They are the sweetest, most precious and most ruthless dictator in the universe.

Which explains the parents.  You can always tell who is the parent of a very young child by the hollowed looks on their faces.  Lack of sleep, too much caffeine, a wardrobe ruined by various bodily fluids, and a total lack of pretension in checking poopy diapers in public. Yep, that’s a parent.

So, we at LarryLand put our heads together (ok technically one head, but there’s a lot of squirrels running around up there) and figured out some sage advice that may help you along.

The Math is Simple: You need one more parent than you have children

You enter parenthood thinking that your children will cooperate, and that you can manage them together. You are fooling yourself. Children of any age are genetically pre-determined to work in complete opposition to one another.

One kid is sleeping; the other apparently drank your Starbucks Veinte-Grande-Extra-Caffeinato (the only thing keeping you awake).  One kid is running to one side of the playground, another to the other side, and a third is using your cellphone to arrange an Uber to the local pub. Kids are in soccer (federally mandated for under 10), another in ballet and so on and so forth. 

As a highly trained mathematician, I can say this honestly: Don’t try this at home. The kids will rebel and you don’t stand a chance. That notwithstanding, the logic is clear. You need one parent to follow each kid.  But there is still stuff to do – pay bills for soccer, wash the kids’ laundry, prepare food they will never eat, pick up Chicken McNuggets because you gave up on dinner – you know, the basics.

This is why you need one more parent than you have kids. They get to actually be the adult in the family.

Take my friends Janelle and John. When they were married, they had one kid between them.  They went by J-Squared (warning: this kind of behavior triggers actuarial exams). It sounded to me like their life went on just fine. They took turns with the kid, and had some semblance of normalcy.

Now they went off and had another kid. The fools!  Ok, the baby is beautiful, as are her parents.  And I’m absolutely confident that they’ll be wonderful in raising their child. BUT THEY WILL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN.

At least, not until they become J-Cubed. They need to adopt an adult like Jimbo or Janice to take care of everything that they will no longer do. And if they decide to have yet another kid, “May the J-the-Fourth” be with them.

One alternative is something that my neighbors Loren and Amy have done.  They have a 3 year old son, and a baby daughter. And no one to help.  So instead they come outside every afternoon around cocktail hour (12pm-10pm, by my watch). And our neighbor Metin will immediately pick up the baby, freeing Loren to run down the street after his son. Really – Loren just completed a marathon, and this was his training. I’m pretty sure he didn’t even have to break a sweat. Pure genius there – Loren, I’m on to you.

You may point out that Angelina Jolie has been collecting children at an amazing rate.  Something like 15,000 children now call her Mom. They all get allowances and appear to be well taken care of.  I have 3 words:  Paid Personal Assistants.  She can hire one for each child, and (pay attention closely) one to manage them all. Yep, one more than the kids.

Babies and Bourbon were made for each other

OK, everyone just chill out. I’m not suggesting that the Mom drink at any point in time. Just when she gets to rest, which is (as I understand it) never. Clearly, Babies and Bourbon were made for each other.

Imagine this: You are in a room with someone acting like a small child – whining, cranky, and in need of a good nap but refusing to take one.  Here I am not talking about the child, but the Dad.  Yes, you, the Mom are the one cleaning house while nursing the infant and preparing dinner.  But Dad had a hard day at the office.   After all, the Peterson account isn’t going to just settle itself; they’re going to have to work through lunch on a zoom call in a nice office with only catered sandwiches to sustain them.  Yes, you were at work as well, but you had to spend your lunchtime preparing dinner for the kid, if you know what I mean.

Bourbon is the answer.  It makes a cranky dad less cranky, and it makes the cranky baby less cranky. Yes, a little doesn’t hurt the kid but it really helps the parents. My mom gave me a bit and look how I turned out (ok, bad example).

This brings me to my friends Caitlyn and Tucker. I’ve known Caity since she was a young girl in ballet school.  Now she’s a fully functional adult with a responsible job and a fantastic website (www.sips-n-tips.com) dedicated to Booze and Food (in that order – her parents raised her right).

Of course, sadly, I’ll bet a lot of money (say, 50 cents) that the blog that could save the world will slow down, unless she takes my advice here.  I’ll challenge Caity here and now to publish a review of which bourbon goes with what child’s mood (husband or baby, it really doesn’t matter). It’s like food pairing, but much more useful.

I will also hope that she and her husband keep in mind the math. There’s a reason that her parents moved to the Seattle area – they had 2 kids and 2 parents and they know better.

So, that’s about it.  Worldly advice from LarryLand, not that you should take it. But it certainly worked for us.

One of my first articles ever written was for Janelle (and another friend Hong) about having their first child. In it I spoke the words that I consider the most meaningful that I have ever written – Don’t Blink. The minute you blink, it’s all over.

Now that I’m a retired veteran parent, I can look back and see that it’s all true. My wife did it all – raised a child, kept up a job, taught her manners and respect – and our ivy-league budding journalist of a daughter is everything that my wife is. All I contributed was a love of shark movies. In return, my daughter gave me this blog so that I can pester you instead of her with all of this bad advice.

Or is it?  You see, we did exactly as this article suggests. We had Nilce, Bobby and Jackson, our daughter’s nanny and her husband and grandson. One more parent than we had kids. They gave our daughter so much. We can never return the favor. Instead, we are family now and I would have it no other way.

And, yes, we had plenty and plenty of wine to go with it. All of the Sonoma trips, and all of the good times here at home, with wine to raise our spirits.  Somewhere there is a picture of our 3 year old daughter raising a wine glass on Patty and Richards’ vineyard. We raised her right.

Recently, on my last wedding anniversary, I was called a Grandpa for the first time by a stranger. I’ll tell that story some other time.  The inference was that I’ve forgotten what being a parent is like. Far from it.

Yes I’m older, my hair is now white, and I’ve put on a bit of weight. Clearly not the kid I was when we started this thing called parenthood. But one thing to me is clear; given the opportunity to do it all over again under the thought that “if I knew then what I know now” I would do only one thing – nothing at all. 

I can look back on it all – the good, the bad, the lack of sleep – and it was all part of the great experience that makes us all so human.  I am lucky.

So congratulations to all of the frazzled parents out there – Janelle, John, Caitlyn, Tucker, Loren, Amy and all the rest – who have taking on the challenge of being a parent. I wish you the best. But… Don’t Blink.

Babies Rule the World.  And they will be our saviors.