In Which Kanga and Roo Bust Out the Wheels

Partially because of the amazing weather lately, partially because of raging diaper rash (hers, not mine) and partially to offset encroaching ennui, J and I have ventured during recent sunny days to:

- the backyard, on a towel
- the front yard, on a towel
- Babies R Us (no towels)

Only one of these ventures involved a stroller.

As we tooled through Babies R Us today, with me jamming a hundred dollars' worth of baby swim accoutrements into my cloth shopping bag, I slowly realized that whipping out the Peg Perego earlier in this seven-month stint could have meant more freedom to both J and me.

It's a very simple thing. Well, the stroller itself is not simple...I seriously require an occasional tutorial in opening and closing it from an industrial designer friend of mine, and even SHE needed a few minutes to orient herself. But the concept of carrying one's child is simple enough.

For the first five months of J's life, besides the transit to and from the car in a carrier seat, I either held her in my arms or in a sling. No other method seemed close enough. What if she cried out? Got scared? Was confused? Only being up close to Mama's heartbeat seemed to solve the problem, and ensure that others weren't bothered by my freaking-out baby.

Realize, of course, that she never -- not once -- freaked out enough to even warrant being that close for soothing. The one time J has ever lost it in public, she was, oh yes, in a sling next to my chest. But still my fears remained and ruled me.

Gradually I started busting out the stroller, swayed by the small group of moms I hang out with. All more fashionable and style-conscious than I, they also make excellent use of their strollers and step out with their babes without a second thought.

Inertia breeds inertia, and today I really felt like I had avoided the Yahoo! baby.house.inertia usergroup by the slimmest of margins.

J deserves to go everywhere I do, insofar as those places are safe and appropriate for her, and I deserve to give myself a little credit for being able to handle the occasional meltdown.

The physical stroller itself also adds some cred to my bounce, as the kids say (or as they certainly should). It warns people ahead of time that a baby is approaching. It leaves my arms untired at the end of the day. It allows me to carry (albeit woefully small amounts of) baby crap. God forbid, it lets J see the world and interact with it as it passes by. And yes, it protects her.

I initially sought protection in methods that kept J physically close to me at all times. But the plastic, fabric and metal of a stroller is something to be reckoned with, and likely keep her better-shaded, -protected and -entertained.

I think I just didn't want to let her go.

In Which Kanga Examines Her Role in the Ecosystem

I am one of those people who never get sick. Between February 1998 and October 2007 I took a grand total of one sick day at work, and just generally felt well.

I attributed it to a few things...sleep (I slept at least eight hours, and often more), frequent exercise, fairly low stress and antioxidant supplements.

I still take antioxidant supplements.

Do you see where this is going?

So, anyway, I WAS one of those people who never get sick. Since J's birth I have had every imaginable ache and pain, from an unshakeable sore throat to blood-streaked phlegm (lovely) to a flare-up of osteoarthritis that I had thought was never to return.

And pinkeye. Who the hell over the age of eighteen gets pinkeye? (Knocked Up characters notwithstanding.)

Previously, with my husband and I as the only nodes of the germ ecosystem, illnesses attached themselves to one node -- his. He could be receiving the Rite of Extreme Unction for cholera and I'd be merrily traipsing off to go be healthy somewhere.

But now I find that my immune response is weakened. It's not any one thing -- I do sleep fairly well, I don't have unmanageable stress, I exercise two days a week or so -- but the paring away from where I used to be healthwise to where I am now...this death by paper cuts...has taken its toll.

Knock on wood, J has made it thus far with only a few days of gunky sniffles; no scary fever or ear infections yet. Even the pinkeye passed her by -- her, the most logical recipient as far as I could tell.

The end result of all this, besides a near-constant feeling that my body is dying, curling off in dry strips and blowing away, is that I have lost any sense of arrogance about my former strapping wellness.

As a new mother, the list of things about which I can be smug is woefully short. There just went another line item.