Three for the show

I knew there would be big changes in my life when I had a baby.  I welcomed 90 percent of them.  The sleep deprivation was a tough one but it didn’t last long.  Spit up at close range is not on my favorites list but most everything has been pretty close to normal, just better with the addition of a new person in my life.  I can still go to hockey games or the mall or a restaurant.  I’ve adjusted to breastfeeding in public although it wasn’t easy at first.   

Finding a place to change a diaper – more of a challenge.  Public bathrooms disgust me.  Before parenthood it was a challenge to get in and out of the loo without touching anything.  Flushing toilets with my foot, opening doors with my elbow, etc.  I have visions of someone who did a number two and didn’t wash their hands and what they may have touched in a facility.  Germophobe yes.  OCD perhaps.  Ability to maintain these phobias as a parent – lacking.

Sometimes I would really like to go to a place that made some time for moms.  Back home there was a program called Reel Babies.  The movie theater would put out some change pads and bottle warmers, swings and jumpers, lower the volume and leave the lights on a little.  They only managed a mom and me movie once a month but it was something.

I happen to love live theater.  I bring my baby to shows but often have to leave to nurse or soothe or change a diaper.  Even if he is simply cooing and babbling, I try not to impose on other theater goers.  I’m happy to do it – I just think there should be space and time for moms.

It’s not often I get to be involved in the planning stages of an event with time so hard to come by but I took on a project for this Fall.  I’m doing a show in Standish and thought maybe instead of complaining, I could try to change the landscape a little.  I suggested a Mommies and Me show.  A Thursday afternoon directed at moms with small kids.  But not just for moms who are married to dads.  Two dad families, two mom families, one dad families. 

And not just for the toddlers who can go to movies and shows anyway but for the babes in arms who would love to sit in mom or dad’s arms and listen to some music and watch some dancing.  I know my baby can sense when I’m anxious and all he wants to do is nurse.  If I could go and relax around a group of other moms/dads, I suspect he would watch the whole show.

My partner and I knew going in that if we couldn’t take our baby somewhere, that place got crossed off our list of outings.  I am years away from finding a babysitter on craigslist and trusting them to take care of my baby so having a few places we can go do the things we used to love and not have to worry - I mean really not have to worry instead of being braced to argue with someone about our right to be somewhere – it’s a comfort.  It’s something to look forward to outside the happy haven we enjoy at home.  It’s good for baby.  It’s good for us.

Feeding Baby 'Baby Food'

I decided early on to ‘make my own baby food’ which is just a fancy way of saying I’m giving my baby some of the food we eat.  Long before I had any appreciation for raising children, a friend of mine attempted making baby food and I thought it was a waste of precious time.  A way to compensate for something she felt was lacking in her parenting.  Why not just buy the jars?  It’s meant for babies.

The benefits of knowing what goes into the food is not the selling point for me.  It’s knowing that the foods we eat on a regular basis will be known to this new roommate of ours and we won’t be glared at over the dinner table because our meals don’t measure up to a Gerber combination or Osh Kosh B’Gosh entrée.

With a breastfed baby, the recommendation is to wait until six months of age to start solid foods.  That gave me plenty of time to prepare.  WRONG.

I started out looking up what foods a baby can eat at first.  Instead I found lists upon lists of things they should not eat.  How it should be prepared.  How it should be stored.  And why it can only be organic or you may as well take your baby to a cancer store and pick out what type you want him or her to get.

I moved on to preparation.  I can pick the menu later.

Machines that are specially designed for baby food preparation are literally hundreds of dollars.  They put the words ‘first foods’ or ‘infant approved’ in the name and all of a sudden a hand blender or food processor is a thing of magic.  I couldn’t tell the difference in the household appliances and the exclusively marketed machines so I put THAT decision off too.

Storage.  Seems to me an ice cube tray does the exact same thing that a silicone tray would do or single serving one ounce jars with lids.  But then I couldn’t be sure if my ice cube trays contained BPA which is practically the equivalent of putting bleach in the food.  I’m not sure what BPA does except that it’s not in some of the toys we have for our baby so it must be bad.

I saw some silicone cupcake trays at a craft store and I get coupons for half off one item every few weeks but something about a cupcake tray didn’t feel right.  It didn’t say baby on it anywhere.

As the months clicked by, I’d keep venturing onto the internet to try researching one more time.  I’d meekly ask another mom how she planned to feed her baby.  The responses may as well have been in a foreign language.  They had read all the same things I did and instead of filtering out useless information, they just repeated it.  No BPA.  No frozen breast milk.  Just ask so-and-so, she makes her own baby food and knows all about that stuff.  But when I asked so-and-so, she put me onto a list of the twelve things you should NEVER feed your child.  Lo and behold, it was eight or nine of the things I eat on a regular basis.  Where’s that cancer store again?

By the time my baby turned six months old, he was feeding constantly.  He had four teeth.  I had to make a move.

Next blog post:  the horrible FRUITS and VEGETABLES I feed my child.