Happy Sunday, guys! I love Sundays. We’re making molasses-spice cookies after Mass today to spite the desert and it’s stupid 103 degree weather.
Some of you have been asking for an update on Liam and the health department debacle, so here it is.
Liam is much better. He’s gone two days without a coughing fit, we haven’t had to give him a breathing treatment since Friday, and his congestion seems to be much less. We’re feeling pretty confident at this point that he does not have whooping cough (thank goodness).
As far as the health department goes, the Ogre informed them that we would be taking no action as far as medications and vaccinations until the whooping cough test came back positive, and then we would all go see a doctor and take the doctor’s recommended course of treatment instead of the health department’s. The woman “strongly urged” him to reconsider, because in one week (the amount of time for the test results to come back) “it would be too late” (her words). I’m guessing she meant that we’d all be dead and/or dying of whooping cough while the CDC swooped in and tried to contain the violent outbreak caused by our pugnaciousness (kinda like swine flu…heh heh…I bet the CDC felt stupid after that), but the Ogre assured her that in order for us to reconsider she’d need to provide him with a court order mandating that we be vaccinated and overly medicated.
And then we both did the Rocky dance. I’m assuming, of course, that there is a dance in that movie, since I stand on principle and refuse to watch it as long as the Ogre keeps telling me that my life will be incomplete until I see it.
So much for the update; as promised, I’m going to tell you why I hate baby-wearing.
I really understand and agree with Dr. Sears and the general baby-wearing population that wearing the baby makes the baby feel secure and snug and cared for and all that. And truth be told, on days when I (grudgingly) whip out the Maya wrap and (awkwardly) shove my giant infant into it, he’s happier. Not only while he’s in the sling, but when he comes out of it.
But I’m not.
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I apologize for the blurry camera phone picture and the fact that Sienna has no clean shirts |
See, at 6 weeks old, not-so-little Liam has already nearly doubled his birth weight. He’s enormous. So after about 45 minutes of “wearing” my child, my back is aching, the front of my shirt is soaked in sweat, and I’m cranky. Also, every single baby wearing product on the market is phenomenally awkward. We’ve tried the Moby Wrap, which I never really figured out and so Sienna (baby at the time) kept falling out the bottom, those weird hammock things, the Baby Bjorn, and now the Maya Wrap. I have to admit that I like the Baby Bjorn for older babies, and the Maya Wrap is okay for newborns, but even with the Maya Wrap, the fabric is constantly folding over itself and getting stuck in the rings so I end up re-threading it about once a week. Not fun.
But I think the biggest problem I have with baby-wearing is one that’s probably unique to me, and people similarly proportioned. See, I’m short…really short. Almost 5’2″ short. Additionally, I have really short arms. So when the baby is in front of me, if I want to, say, do the dishes, I have to stand sideways and use one hand at a time because my arms don’t reach around the baby. Well, they do, but barely. And then the baby gets splashed with water and wakes up and screams, and I get crankier.
Baby wearing is annoying! It’s great for things like taking a walk, but not so practical for other things like daily life. And while some people really like having their (probably normal-sized) newborns all snuggled close so they can hear their breathing, I’m on my third kid. What I would really like to hear is silence and the sweet, sweet sound of a wine cork popping.
But since I am on my third kid and my first kid is out of clean underwear and my second kid just crushed half a box of cereal into the carpet, it looks like I’ll be pulling out the Maya Wrap and listening to soft baby sighs, punctuated of course by shrill toddler and preschooler screams. I might throw a few screams of my own in there, just for good measure.