Raising Martians

Did you know that the recommended baby room temperature is 16 to 20 degrees Celsius. For people using other scales, that's damn cold to not quite warm enough. For a while I didn't realize why little children are tortured with this inhumane temperature range but then I figured it out: BABIES ARE NOT HUMAN!

Humans prefer to live within their comfort zone - nice temperature, nice food and comfortable clothing. Babies need to be kept at low temperature, fed bland food and dressed in fluffy clothing with buttons on their backs. Humans can sleep in whatever position they feel like. Babies have to sleep on their backs or on their side. And it's not "either on the back or on the side", it just really depends which country you live in. As a biologist it makes me want to divide babies into two subspecies: side-sleepers and back-sleepers.

For the first months of their existence, babies are allowed to eat and drink only milk. This is proof of BABY EVOLUTION as newborn babies used to need extra water, chamomile tea and fruit puree. Baby milk has to be produced from baby-safe food which has never caused an allergic reaction in any baby ever before, preferably the milk producer (a.k.a. mother) is to eat only rice and water. After 6 months babies start to eat extra baby food. You can make it yourself too - just take all the nasty healthy things from your kitchen that no human eats, then boil them and make a puree. Make sure you don't add anything that might make it tasty! I mean, you can offer a baby mashed potatoes but if you add a pinch of salt, milk, butter, or any other kind of flavoring that might make it tasty you can't feed it to a baby anymore. There is, however, a loophole with the baby feeding business. You can flavor mashed potatoes with mashed carrots! A little bit of variety while still "food" that no human would voluntarily eat.

Baby room temperature has to be 16 to 20 degrees because babies require many layers of full-body clothing at all times. Whenever they fall asleep they need to be quickly covered with a thick blanket (preferably either baby pink or baby blue otherwise the baby's head will explode from being introduced to colors other than pink and baby blue). Upon falling asleep, turn off ALL sound near the baby or if you wish, you can sing lullabies but no other kind of music. Baby's clothing has to be washed with water and baby safe washing powder, under no circumstances must normal household laundry washing be used on baby clothing. If you use cloth diapers, make sure you wash them, boil them and iron them after each use. Every pacifier or milk bottle that a baby uses has to be boiled either daily or after each use.

If you raise a baby you need to get all those things right! Make no mistake! Boil baby bottles, wash baby clothes with special powder, make sure you don't introduce baby to any flavors, colors, sound, bacteria or anything else that makes human world what it is today. I haven't found the proof yet, but I'm pretty sure babies are being prepared for life on another planet and after a year on Earth they migrate to outer space.

As for Siiri, I'm raising her to be mine and Erkki's offspring - a human being. I wash her clothes just like I wash mine (until she gets an allergic reaction, which has not happened yet). I keep her in a room with normal temperature of 24 degrees, I make her milk from every allergen eaten by people until I see her get an allergy. I play her music that I normally listen to, I dress her in the clothing I would choose to wear if I was that small with inadequate blood circulation. And she can spend time where ever I would feel comfortable. When the room feels warm to me, I cover her with a folded cloth in stead of a warm blanket. Just like I buy myself cool cosmetics, she deserves to have her very own mild baby shampoo and her very own cute yellow towel. And I promise to start boiling her baby bottles before each use when I also decide to boil her hand each time she tries to put it in her mouth.

In short, I don't treat Siiri like a baby (). In stead I treat her like a tiny human who will live on Earth 5, 10 and even 50 years from now. I'm sure if she disagrees with any of my decisions for her comfort she will loudly let me know. So far I don't see her complaining.