Helpful suggestions for being helpful

If you'd like to help a couple with a newborn here are a few things to try:

• Bring food.
• Bring beer (or whiskey).
• Offer to help with cooking and cleaning.
• Change a diaper.
• Go home.

You will notice that one thing that's not on the list is: hold the baby.
Many newborns are sleepy little angels during the day (typically when you're visiting).

They're resting up so they have energy to cry at 3:00am.

This isn't to say that it's never helpful to hold the baby.  When I'm running on 2 hours of sleep I find it's better to have the baby far away when attempting to cook (which seems to involve setting the stove on fire while slicing into my finger). Also, I still haven't figured out how to juggle the baby and the toilet paper.

But, that two hours you spent holding the baby when she was asleep? Please stop kidding yourself that you were being helpful. That's like eating the custard filling out of my donut and then explaining how it's awesome that I can now eat more bran flakes.