Filed under: Family Life
My husband and I decided to buy this bean bag chair for our 1-year old daughter for Christmas because she loves to lounge, read, wrestle and snuggle in piles of pillows. We figured she’d get a kick out this, and even though it’s expensive, she’ll be able to use it until she’s much, much older. Right? Justification by math — it comes out to about $10 / year, so it’s an investment of sorts, the gift that keeps on giving.
So I’m talking to my colleague about this who says that she had to get over her “thing” with bean bag chairs before getting one for her own daughter. Her dad was a firefighter and was called out to a home in the ’80s because two kids had hidden in their bean bag chair while playing Hide-N-Seek, inhaled the little beany things, and suffocated to death. I paused before the picking up the phone to order from the U-Village store and said, “Great, that’s awesome, one more way for me to accidentally kill my child.”
I’m going to pick up the Bean Bag Chair of Death this week and am not all that worried about it. There’s so many way for your kid to hurt themselves, that really, you’d go nuts trying to insulate them from the dangers of daily life. I sometimes joke that I’m a Slacker Mom because I let Clare “eat” dirt, leaves, rocks, pretty much anything she finds on the floor so long as it’s not dangerous. She’ll eventually realize that it tastes gross and will spit it out.
So Merry Christmas kiddo. I hope that zipper safety panel really works on this thing. Next year I’ll buy you a bee bee gun. I’m KIDDING!
Filed under: Clare, Family Life | Tags: baby sitting, Brad Pitt, Clare, Coen brothers
My husband and I saw our first movie in a theater since Clare was born: Burn After Reading. We are both Coen brother fans so it didn’t disappoint, and I have to say that Brad Pitt was spot-on with his Hardbodies character. While Mr. Pitt isn’t quite on my boyfriend list, I would spend the requisite five minutes in the closet with him were we to play Spin the Bottle. My favorite part of the evening though was indulging in a grande drip coffee and a large box of Junior Mints that I refused to share with my husband, even when has asked very nicely. I may have even swatted his hand away at one point. Territory must be defended.
When I was a teenager, I “babysat” a 5 month old boy whom I literally met once, and that was at the introduction session with his parents, the “get to know you” hour. By the time I arrived to their house at 7:00, Sam was in bed. I would read and listen to Bonnie Raitt, because their taste in music was quite different from mine and that was the one tape in their tape deck that I actually liked. I relished the few hours of lounging in their house and relaxing, but I never really appreciated things from their perspective before. Now I wonder where they went to dinner and what they thought of me, this skinny teenager they hardly knew, who was sitting in their house and would soothe their baby if he woke up. It always felt slightly strange to me to take their $25 when all I did was hang out, but now I know it was probably the best $25 they spent all week.
Now, at age 34, that “baby sitting” has had a revival of sorts. John and I swap baby sitting nights with our friends who live across the street. They went out Friday night while their son slept and I lounged on their couch and listened to Nick Drake and Beth Orton on my iPhone. And read a pile of magazines and David McCullough’s “John Adams.” As much as things have changed…they somehow have stayed the same. Hmmmm…that’s a song lyric, right?
