Wednesday, March 09, 2011

So begins the peaceful reign of King Björn.

Ben and I have been looking forward with a kind of desperate optimism to the day when Bee could hold up her wobbly little head and be toted around in one of those frontpack carriers loved by yuppie parents like us. Myself, I've kind of been fantasizing about carrying a baby around in a BabyBjörn since 2002 or so, when I met Ben and straightaway made up my mind that he and I would be getting married and having babies at his earliest convenience. But back then, I imagined trotting around Fifteenth in Capitol Hill with our happy hipster baby, maybe getting a muffin at Victrola on the way to doing whatever hipster parents do in Seattle (you can tell I'd really thought through the logistics of that fantasy). Fast-forward nine years, and Ben and I now live in a part of the country where it's too nipple-freezingly cold to take an infant outside in a Björn most of the time, and we're too old to be hipsters (or, for that matter, yuppies), and, anyhow, our little girl is a strong-willed, stately little creature who resolved, early on, that she could not possibly abide being carried around in a glorified backpack.
So, faced with a baby who hated the BabyBjörn, Ben and I examined the facts in front of us, drank a bunch of coffee, and ruled that the BabyBjörn would be set aside until such a time that Bee could hold her head up dependably, at which point she might, Jesus willing, be interested in riding front-facing (as opposed to the rejected inward-facing position for newborns) in the Björn. We had no intention of forcing it, but we'd noticed that she does like to get the lay of the land while being carried in our arms a million hours a day, so Ben and I figured this position -- available only to big girls who can hold their heads up -- would be perfect for letting Bee survey her world.
Well, here's the paragraph where you totally know I'm going to reveal how VERY WRONG we were, as always, and then make some peppy jokes about parenthood beating the living crapola out of Ben and me. Except, guess what! Guessguessguessguessguess! We* were actually right for once: Bee utterly loves being carried around in the Björn now, and will happily let us roam about with her strapped to our frontsides all freaking day! For longer than we generally want to be roaming about with her strapped to our frontsides!  O miracle! The earth grew glad! AND, we are told by friends, the pediatrician, and Dr. Internet that colicky babies often start feeling a lot better around the time when they can hold their heads up (and better still once they can sit up), because lying flat exacerbates their reflux. So maaaaybe that will happen and our girl will stop, you know, screaming all the time? Like I said, a desperate optimism.
In other news, I’m going to hold the record for number of times a simple pullover sweater (Ravelry link) gets frogged. Maybe I need to switch to a new hobby, something where carelessness is a virtue. Any ideas?
* Actually, Ben was right. It was his theory. The ones that end up being correct are pretty much always his.

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