fandomhigh | Child Development- 1st Period- Class #2

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Child Development- 1st Period- Class #2

Having sent out a handwavy E-mail telling everyone to meet in the danger shop, the students would walk in to what looked like a day care. There weren't any desks, but the students were more than welcome to take seats on the floor.

"Welcome back, everyone," Lily greeted the class. She didn't look as good as she usually did, due to the fact that the washing machine had decided to act up riiiiiiight about the time she needed to actually, you know, do laundry, and she ws therefor having to go a little more casual. That's okay, she could work it. "We had a couple people try out the empathy belly, and happy extra credit to you.

"Okay, so you've had the kid- hypothetically. No one currently in high school needs to be having those anytime soon. That is my standard disclaimer," she said. "Congratulations, you now have an eensy weensy adorable tiny little bundle of joy. Except for the part where they can't do anything for themselves and need you to do it for them, all the time. And guess what, desperate teens, they can't love you back right away."

She passed out a set of handouts on early babyhood, still talking. "When you get them home, they don't really do much. They sleep. They fill their diapers. That's your life for a while. They can't hold their heads up. In fact, you have to watch out because they have an actual soft spot on their head. These things are entirely defenseless." ~~Sock.~~ "And then when they start getting older, they get to be more fun. By the end of three months, they can probably hold their heads up, or hold themselves up when they're on their stomachs. They're learning coordination and gross motor skills. And the best thing ever: they start smiling and babbling. Plus they're still little enough that you can put them in adorable hats.

"But the adorable has a bad side," Lily said, and there was another handout. "Those little suckers cry. They cry like there's no tomorrow. Which to them, it just may be. They're like six months old, they don't know what tomorrow is yet. And you don't really have any way to figure out what they want, at least not right away. Maybe they're hungry. Maybe they need to be changed. Maybe they're gassy. Maybe they're tired. Yes, rather than going to sleep, they will just cry. And sometimes, they'll cry just to cry. There's a thing called colic, where the baby will just cry for hours because they're fussy. That can be up to three hours a day, three days a week.

"Your assignment today is to make them stop." And suddenly there was a line of cribs along the walls, enough for each student. "Each of you gets one of these little guys, and they are programmed to cry and cry and cry. They have different reasons for it. Go ahead, consult your notes, try and figure out what your baby needs. Don't worry, if your baby needs a diaper change, you don't actually have to do it. Once you figure it out, your baby will stop crying, and you can take a cookie and some earplugs from the table by the door right there.

"Also, if anyone wants extra credit for next week, I want you to find a toy. You can bring in an actual toy, or a printout from a computer of a toy, a picture of a toy, whatever, and tell us why you think it's an appropriate toy for a child up to six months old."

And with that, the crying started.

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Each of you has your own baby. They're completely moddable, but they're programmed to scream their little heads off till you figure out if they're tired, hungry, need to be changed, fussy, etc. etc. Once you figure out what their problem is, the kid will stop crying and you can wander off to beg to go to the nurse for aspirin or help another student, whatever. And feel totally free to commiserate with your fellow students while you're trying to figure it out.

There was only one way to handle this and when he was standing over the crying baby in the crib, he started singing. Who knew what was wrong with the baby, but his singing was boisterous enough that he couldn't hear the crying while singing.

Win win, yes?

"Okay, little guy, let's just see what you need," John said, starting with an attempt at feeding the kid. When even a swoopy airplane got no results, he switched it up to check to see if it needed changed.

Twenty minutes later and he was still going through choices. When even a need for sleep wasn't the culprit, John finally picked up the baby and started bouncing it.

"Really? You're just gonna cry all period?" he asked and it seemed yes, that was the ticket, and he was rewarded with blissful silence.

Claire started out by making a face at the baby like she thought glaring at it might solve the problem. Finally she picked it up, checked its diaper (ew, even if it wasn't real), and then found a bottle.

The baby was kind of cute, in an animatronic way, once it was eating.

Unfortunately, it started crying again as soon as it finished the bottle.

Claire suspected this would be a long class.

See, there was a benefit to always carrying around your very nice headphones. Chad pulled them up from where they were hanging around his neck, securing them to his ears for a little noise control, before picking up the baby and starting with the most fundamental possibility: that the little guy just needed some comfort. Holding a baby was pretty easy for Chad, and he was surprisingly gentle with it, cradling in his big arms and bouncing it softly.

If that didn't work, he'd get check the diaper, and then try some food, and then just find some toys to distract it with. He thought maybe he'd make some funny faces, but he figured trying to make funny faces on his face would probably just scare it and make it cry some more.

This was, for the moment, feeling very similar to sex ed, and Angela wasn't honestly that worried when she first picked up the baby to coo at it.
Of course, she wasn't bargaining on having a baby specifically designed to cry for what seemed like the entire class period. All the bottles and cutesy noises in the world weren't going to do anything here.

"Try jiggling it a little," K-Mart suggested at one point as she paced around with her baby in her arms. "Like, bounce it in your arms a little."

That was working with hers. Of course, if she stopped moving, hers started screaming again.

"I'm not going to be able to feel my arms later, am I?" Angela remarked as she tried that to little effect.

"Probably not," K-Mart said. "Try doing it and pacing. Of course, you won't be able to stop moving, but at least the bratling will shut up."

"Bratling?" Angela asked, arching an amused eyebrow. The crying hadn't given her a headache yet, she might move onto names for the thing once it had.

She swayed from side to side a little, and the screaming toned down to a slightly milder form of wail. Improvement! How was this so much more complecated than the ones last semester?

"Yes, bratling. Also, spawn, brat, pain-in-the-ass." K-Mart grinned and shifted her baby as she started pacing in a different direction while talking. "All perfectly fine potential names."

Angela grinned back, since her kid was quietening down as she moved.

"Functional," she said with a little laugh. "Not name choices I can say I've considered, I have to say."

"I'd much prefer a nice normal name, but if the kid never shuts up, I'm probably not going to be wanting to yell nice things at it." K-Mart laughed and the baby made a gurgling noise. "... I think it just laughed. Wait, are you a boy or a girl? Do I even want to find out?"

Aw, the laughing was kind of cute even when they were danger shop simulated babies.

Angela peered over the other girl's shoulder a moment. "I'm going to guess boy," she said knowledgeably. She has no idea.

Peyton actually had one heck of a lot of experience with this between Jenny and then the wokling last term, so it really didn't take her long to get the baby to stop crying.

Oddly, Francine leaning over the crib and cooing, "Aww, hi there. What's the matter, honey?" seemed to produce even louder crying. "Need a change?" That would be a no, she deduced after a quick check, so she picked the baby up and bounced it -- well, him; it was a little hard to miss -- a bit.

"Waaah!"

"Hungry?" she asked, patting the soft little head. The wailing got a little quieter, so she reached for a bottle.

Tiny fist-flail. Crankyface. Spit. Waaaaaaah.

Sigh. "What do you want?" Francine leaned her head down to look into his slightly un-focused eyes.... and watched them focus on the same place almost every guy she'd ever talked to spent most of his time replying to instead of her face.

".........Um."

"Waaaaaaaaah!" Flailyhands.

That made two of them, though only one was blushing furiously. "No, no, no!" she whispered. Strenuously. "Those aren't for actual... uh... they'rejustforlookingat!"

Good to know you can still facepalm while holding a baby in one hand and a bottle in the other. Even if you almost get a nipple in your eye.

Edited 2009-01-13 15:30 (UTC)

Jess eyed the baby warily before starting through the basics and seeing if it was hungry. He was almost expecting it to need changing, since that was the worst thing he could think of at the moment, but that wasn't the problem either, and he tried picking the baby up and rocking it, but that only helped a little. Sighing, he kept up with the rocking and hoped he could just get it to sleep or something.

Kaylee checked to see if her baby needed a change, just to get the unpleasantest one out of the way. Nope. And she tried offering it a bottle. Also nope.

She looked around and saw people bouncing their babies, so she tried that. That started to settle it, but it didn't really quiet until she tried a little lullaby her mom had sung to her as a kid.

Of course, as soon as she stopped singing, the baby started crying again. It would be a long, long class.

"Okay, come on, knock it off," Jen told the baby. "What is it you want? No no no, come on, let's try and stay calm here, okay? Did somebody do something to make you upset? Hey, look, I've got a bottle here for you if you want it . . . if you stop crying I'll give you the bottle, that sound like a good offer?"

Yeah, so she was approaching this like a hostage negotiation situation.

What? The crying had her sanity hostage.

After a brief tussle with the baby over who would not be yanking on her dangly earrings, and an even briefer check of the baby's diaper, Claudia came to the conclusion that the baby was hungry.

It was, but the time she'd wasted checking a diaper had now wound the kid up so much that getting it to eat between screams took twice as long as it would have. The baby was gasping so much air that it spit up all over itself, needed a complete outfit change, and finally cried itself to sleep.

[OOC: Not based on real life at all. Rly.]

It wasn't so long ago that Dean had to do this when he was looking after Gracie. He picked up the baby, checked if it needed changing, was hungry and finally got it to settle down by rocking it and humming Metallica softly.

"I so rock at this," he said quietly with a grin.

"Yeah?" said Bender, leaning over the crib at the infant who wailed and flailed it's arms up at him.

"Fine," he glared. Bender grabbed the baby in one hand, and lifting it's scrunched up face up to eye level and poked it in the stomach. The baby - momentarily quiet when lifted - started crying again, feet kicking out a rat-tat-tat against against Bender's torso.

Scowling at it Bender held the baby further out. "I can wait for longer than you can scream," he told it. The baby? Seemed intent on testing that theory.

The first thing Jill did was--very reluctantly--check the diaper. No luck. Then she tried a bottle. The screaming continued unabated. "Mal, mal, mal," she muttered under her breath, and lifted the baby to her shoulder to burp it.

No more screaming. Awesome.

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Child Development- 1st Period- Class #2

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