TOTALLY ADDICTED

Ohhhh I'm excited! Today I ordered a BabyHawk. Those of you who see me often are familiar with my babywearing habits...Corwyn is frequently slinged or Cuddlywrapped on either Chris or I. Although we love our stroller, Chris and I are firm believers in the benefits of "babywearing" and we have a well-loved ring sling and an often-used Cuddly Wrap.

See how handy it is to have your kid in a sling? You can easily eat a delicious donair, which is a decidedly two-handed food.

Corwyn is now nearing the 15 lb mark and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to wear him in the sling for extended periods of time. It's too much weight on one shoulder. Our other carrier is a Cuddly Wrap and as much as I love it, the fact is that it's black and is going to be really hot to wear in the summer, and not practical for whipping him in and out of quickly, so we were in the market for another alternative.

So, after trying many different carriers at the Babywearing Conference a couple of weeks ago, we fell in love with the BabyHawk. It just took me a really long time to decide what fabric I wanted. There are a lot of options!

I love wearing Corwyn. I like to have him close to me, it makes him happy and content, we can breastfeed on the go, I have both hands free, and he takes naps. Whenever we wear him when we go out, do we ever get comments. People act like they've never seen a baby in a sling before. I guess many people haven't. There's strollers everywhere and the whole world seems to enjoy carrying their infants in those damned annoying car seats (so heavy, so awkward!) but it seems like in our neighborhood the Bugaboo Frogs abound, but not so many baby slings. Hey, we're raging hippies at heart, what can I say?

Actually, there's another reason why I am intentional about wearing Corwyn so much in public. Remember I blogged about my megaphone a while back? Well, babywearing is another tool in my toolbox. . .another way for me to get out my megaphone and say "It's the best thing in the world to carry your baby. Gary Ezzo and his Babywise stuff is out to lunch. (oh, did I say that outloud?) Breastfeed on demand. Co-sleep. Trust your instincts." It's another way for me start conversations, to educate women. When my friends start having babies, they'll remember how cool they thought the Cuddly Wrap was, they'll rememer how fun it was when they tried it out. They'll remember how handy the sling looked when I was carrying a whole bunch of stuff and a baby. When I talk to strangers on the bus, or in the grocery store, I can tell them that's it's comfortable, that babies held in slings cry less and sleep better, that they're not new - most of the world has been using them for thousands of years. And in the middle of these conversations, I get to be close to my baby. Win-Win!

Please enjoy this picture of Chris being all like homee g thug saying "what's up yo this is just me and my kid being all chill in the westside hood." (Actually, it's just really hard to take a picture of Chris where he doesn't look drunk or stoned he tries not to, but it often turns out looking something like this. Also, he is not intentionally making the "Westside" gang sign with his fingers, that is really, truly coincidence.)

Please note that although these two pictures are both at the beach, it was on two separate occasions. Also, we don't only wear the sling at the beach. It's just the only place it occurs to me to take pictures, and so the only pictures I had of us wearing Corwyn. I should also confess that these two pictures mark the only two times in the past year that we have gone to the beach. Even though it is only 10 minutes from our house. This fact makes me feel like an idiot.

Anyways, lets move on from the addiction of babywearing to the far less noble addiction to the boob tube. Although I may defend my love of Grey's Anatomy to Chris by standing by its classification as a "drama", deep down inside I know that it is really just a soap opera with better sets, lighting and script writers, but I really, really love it. Thursdays has been a bad day for us, I never seem to be home, or organized enough to set the VCR to tape it. So I've been sadly missing it. Then I discovered that the CTV website has full episodes. Well. That kept me up until 1 am the other night. Oops.

Also on the topic of television, I am finally free of daytime TV. I don't turn on the TV just to watch TV during the day, but when I sit down to feed Corwyn, it is regularly at about 1 pm, and another soap opera disguised as a "drama" is on every day at Much Music...they air an episode of the O.C. I know it's terrible. But I love it. Seth Cohen. . . oh-so-funny. So I've been working my way through all the seasons. And it finished this week. So I'm done. Daytime television officially over. I now listen to our satellite* radio (we have over 100 channels of music for crying out loud) and I'm going to start reading again. Once I pay off my library fines. I would like you to take note of the fact that I made sure Seth's (I don't actually know the actor's real name) picture was small enough that I wouldn't look like some lame teen crush fansite. Because I'm not, he's just really funny and a girl needs to laugh. Especially one who is still on the postpartum hormonal roller coaster.

*I spelled satellite really wrong when I typed it and my spell checker auto-corrected it to "Israelite". This made me laugh.