Thursday, September 07, 2006

Motion

Will The Baby Nephew has a swing. It is an automatic one, with a mobile and a mirror and nature sounds and a tinkly lullaby function. You plop him in, and turn it on, and many minutes later he'll still be quite happily rocking out, a human metronome that pees itself every couple hours.

Jim The Small Child Nephew
enjoys the swing perhaps even more than his brother does. Before Will arrived, you may recall, he would plop Naked Baby into the seat and shove it into a near 180-degree arc, yelling, "Wheeee!" Now that an actual baby rests there, he likes to point and update us on Will's activities. "Baby wheeee," he announces.

The swing has about ten speed settings. I've only been witness to the first two. The first is Barely Moving, but the second is Nuclear-Powered Slingshot, which Will seems to enjoy between the spewing.

Every now and then he hangs out in this weird lounge chair that has a seat belt. A seat belt. For a chair. That's not going anywhere. So now we're not only ratcheting our babies into car seats like NASCAR drivers about to motor into a deep sea diving expedition, we also buckle them in for the highly dangerous sport of... lying there. I predict in-utero saftey harnesses by the time Will hits preschool.

Will was swinging when I first met him. I crouched down and swayed along; "I am your aunt," I said as he passed back and forth before me. He was not impressed.

I do not have a mobile and a mirror and nature sounds and a tinkly lullaby function, but the next time he cried, I scooped him up and slung him back and forth. Jim ran for Naked Baby and held him in a similar posture. "Baby wheeee! Goooo, baby!" he said, swinging his doll the way I rocked his brother. My arms began to ache as Will dropped to sleep, but I held him anyway, watching his brother spin, the four of us moving together.

go baby at: mb@blondechampagne.com

9 comments:

Cbell said...

I will tell you now what is really special about these moments will be your reflection of them as the kids get older.

Let me give you a bit of insight on a couple of things as they grow up. The first time I bought my oldest niece clothes that were in the Junior section of the store (instead of the children's department) I cried like a baby. It was Christmas time and the fashion choices were propelled from charming to skanky in less than 30 seconds. But my then boyfriend kept telling me how silly I was being, and after I smacked him, I found the perfect outfit to keep me as the favorite aunt.

She graduated high school in May and I thought about all the feedings, burpings, skinned knees and outings we have shared. I did better this time, I waited to cry in the privacy of my own home. And then... keeping in with the favorite aunt status, took her and her best friend to Florida for a week after graduation, where I handed over the journal that I began for her when she was 10 years old.

Now she gets to look back on what we did for years to come. Enjoy those boys!

Life's a Laugh said...

You laugh at the seatbelt for the chair but they made that for kids like me. Apparently during the baby years, my mom had me in one of those nifty seats that lacked the three point harness around the lower body area. I managed to slip from below the lap belt, slide out of the seat and knock the ol' noggin on the coffee table. So the dent in my forehead, yeah it's from that.

Anonymous said...

"...with a mobile and a mirror and nature sounds and a tinkly lullaby function."

That's kinda vague isn't it? Is it the sound of sea waves? crickets at night in the middle of the rain forest? the mating sounds of two Okavango hyenas? A polar bear chewing seal blubber? ;-)

Anonymous said...

Is this baby seat with the seatbelt the vibrating kind? I've been wondering if anyone has done a study on whether the constant buzzing can cause some kind of neurological damage. If the vibrations from a jackhammer can damage an adult, then isn't it conceivable that the vibrating baby seat could damage a proportionately sized human?

My nieces and nephews all enjoyed their vibrating seats WAY too much. I haven't noticed any problems yet, but I've been watching for symptoms that could be blamed on these devices.

Anonymous said...

dear monica,

If your nephews and nieces enjoy the teletubbies, then is off to the brain scanner!

If otherwise, they laugh with SpongeBob, then they are ok! :-)

Anonymous said...

The love of the vibrating seat in my family seems to be related to obsessions with the Baby Mozart series and The Wiggles. Ben, the oldest and most perfect of nephews, has recently developed an appreciation for Sponge Bob - he basically stalked him all over Paramount Kings Island. There was a brief stint of TeleTubbie appreciation, but we nipped that right in the bud.

Anonymous said...

"I handed over the journal that I began for her when she was 10 years old."

That is a beauty-ful idea, cbell. I think I'll steal it :)

"Is this baby seat with the seatbelt the vibrating kind?"

The very one. My cousin used to just put her baby in his carrying case on top of the dryer.

ShannJ said...

Hey MB - you'd be surprised at how proficient those little bodies are at launching themselves and or slipping right out of those seemingly stationary seats whenever you forget to buckle the little seatbelt or turn your back for only a minute. They're quick little buggers! Although we've definitely saved some of the best bumps on the head for walking and running when seatbelts just can't be used.

I may have to steal the journal idea for my own little guy as well. What a great thing to have to share with your niece cbell!

Anonymous said...

I saw my godson yesterday for the first time since the day after he was born. I'd been so busy with moving that I had no time to see him.

He looked at me all wide-eyed. Then I realized he looked at everything wide-eyed: he has wide eyes. I held him and then Daddy gave me a bottle. Baby looked at that wide-eyed, and drank hungrily. He loooked at me wide-eyed and satisfied.

Then he spit up on me.

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