Parental Glossary

As a parent, there are some words and phrases I've found myself using more often. Here are a few of them:

Hygiene - Restoring the baby's environmental containment to normal operating parameters.

Containment failure - At the very least, the baby needs a change of clothes.

Good end / bad end - Ranked based on whether a noise emanating from that end is likely to cause us more work in the immediate future, e.g. "Did that noise come from the kid's good end?"

Discombobulated - Efforts to fix whatever is causing discomfort are impeded by just how uncomfortable the kid is (e.g. she's too tired to eat or too hungry to sleep or too generally or just needs to calm down before she can feed properly).

Hangry - That baby-carrier ride had better come with food, or else. The emotion that leads the kid to try wildly ineffective nipple-seeking techniques like head-butting whichever parent is in range or wildly thrashing her head from side to side.

#badmom ("Hashtag Badmom") - Running joke about whether one thing or another would lead us (or, society being what it is, Julie in particular) to be judged unworthy by this generations' parenthood commentators.

Crankster - "Nice day you're having. Would be a shame if some inconsolable crying were to happen to it."

Working on something - Reason why the kid is making funny faces or otherwise acting uncomfortable, generally the "something" is a challenging bit of digestion.

Babingress - Taking the kid for a stroll around town while playing my favorite mobile territory-capturing game.

Adventure mode - In a hold that allows for an excellent view of whatever interesting thing is in sight. In the last week or two, the kid has started to really like this sort of hold.

Little bear - The kid, when she is full of determination (mind the claws!) but also cuteness.

The cutest barnacle - The kid, when she really wants to be close.