Archive for January, 2011
Well, it finally happened. Vee has grown tall enough to skim the top of her tiny hand over the edge of our storage shelf and grab hold of whatever happens to be sitting there. Yesterday she got her hands on a favour box I had designed, filled to the brim with jelly beans.
At first, she just reveled in her feat. Then, she discovered what a great shakey-thing the little box was. I watched transfixed, wondering at what point to intervene with the ever-too familiar ‘NO NO NO NO!!” Happily she continued shaking, perhaps with more force than I initially thought, because in about 30 seconds there were beautiful, colourful, choking hazards littering my living room floor. Crap.
Just before we left for Vee’s first plane ride and our first family vacation in Cabo, there was a flurry of activity on Twitter. A very perceptive polemic was posted by Corinne McDermott of the fantastic Have Baby Will Travel, and it chilled me to the bone. She had managed to channel my deepest fears about the flight before it even happened. In a raw eloquence she perfectly summarized the discrimination that families face when traveling on flights with young children. It resounded with me. I had never taken Vee on a plane before, but I already lived in fear of scathing looks and eye-rolls and muttered prayers for a quiet trip, because it’s not just on planes that the strange anti-baby vibe is felt. I shouldn’t call it anti-baby. Instead I think I’ll address it as a mob mentality. And if the mob had a name, it would be the BAPs, or Baby Appropriateness Police. Moms know that this is the silent movement that judges the appropriateness of you having brought your child into an environment thought more suitable for adults. Like an office. Or even a doctor’s office. Or a restaurant. You’d be surprised how often moms get shot that attitude. Even celebrity moms get hassled. Just yesterday I saw Tori Spelling tweet “thr’s a super famous Boxer in the restaurant we R at sitting nxt 2 us. He looked SO pissed when we brought R kids in 4 dinner. So rude! #FB”
