Take a walk in your neighborhood while pushing your baby who refuses to nap in a stroller. Name five things you see, four things you hear, three things you smell, two things you touch, and one thing you taste. Repeatedly pick up the pacifier from the trash-strewn sidewalk and rub it with a disinfecting wipe. Taste is the hardest one!

Sitting in the kitchen while your baby naps, think about the last misunderstanding you had. Turn down the sound on the baby monitor and write about the misunderstanding from the other person’s perspective. Then write about the misunderstanding from your own perspective before the baby’s wails become loud enough to prompt a “checking in” text from your downstairs neighbor. Take your time with this one.

Write a story about an underground tunnel that leads someplace unexpected while you sit between a radiator and a diaper pail.

Using a piece of scrap paper you got from the recycling because your laptop is out of battery and the charger is in the nursery, write an acrostic poem using the name of your favorite flower. Turning over the paper to the side that says “We ❤️ Our Customers,” rewrite each line of the poem backward.

Pick up a call from the pediatrician, who confirms that the toothpaste to brush the baby’s single tooth should not contain fluoride. Hang up and rewrite every other line forward. Forget whether the pediatrician said the toothpaste should contain fluoride or should not contain fluoride. Call the pediatrician back. Lose the scrap paper in the vacuum cleaner when your spouse vacuums up crushed Doritos.

Write a physical description of a character who will later betray your protagonist, while deciding whether you should clean up the mashed avocado smeared on the underside of your laptop now or later. Remember that you ran out of disinfecting wipes. Realize that it is only eight-ten in the morning.

Think about the scariest moment of your life. Encourage your baby to do his physical-therapy exercises while you write about the moment as though it just happened.

Insure that your baby is alternating picking up objects with his right hand and his left hand. Insure that he doesn’t roll off the rug and onto the hard surface of the floor as you write about the moment (the scariest one of your life, remember?) from the distance of many years.

Choose which point of view you like better, as your baby hits you in the knee with a rattle covered in so much spit that the spit is somehow inside the rattle.

Contemplate what the philosophers get wrong about the nature of time. Ignore the fact that your baby’s diaper features a pattern of turtles wearing glasses.

Put away all distractions, except for your baby, who is making tiny bite marks with his single tooth on the pieces of his wooden stacking toy. Sit down at your desk, or, in your case, the floor, and just let go, writing every thought that comes to mind as your baby begins to cry because you are preventing him from gnawing on the legs of the coffee table.

Commit to your own authentic voice, without judgment or memories of the money you still owe on a high-tech bassinet. While beginning the second load of laundry that day, reread what you wrote and highlight common themes with different colored highlighters, or squint at the page, trying to make out what it says because it has become wet.

Write at least two paragraphs about a baby who rolls around ripping up tissues, as you answer the buzzer to receive a mysterious stranger. He says he’s your best friend, whom you lost touch with years ago, but he looks totally different. What could this be about?

Your grandfather’s will contains nothing but a single key. While wondering what it opens, write a short story about a baby who likes to suck on charging cords.

Realize that your shadow has become separated from your body and is now walking around on its own. Describe (1) the smell of formula, (2) the pluses and minuses of a crib vs. a pack ’n’ play, or (3) a baby who says only the consonant sound “d.”

But you may be distracted by your suspicion that the “shadow self” is willing—even eager—to do wicked deeds. Return to the description that you chose, but find yourself unable to concentrate on the unfamiliar details.

Who has time to write about caring for a baby, anyway, when you’re busy with real-life tasks, like preventing your shadow self from concocting poisons?

Think about what your life would be like if you became a pirate. Keep thinking about that as you clean your baby’s belly button. ♦