Fannin' That Baby Around
Monday, May 21, 2007

Scout and I just went for a walk outside. The weather is absolutely gorgeous.

I'm excited about going over to a friend's house for lunch tomorrow. Actually, she is more of an acquaintance. I met her at a coffee shop close to where DH used to work and then later ran into her at a LLL meeting. She has a baby daughter, is into cloth diapering, babywearing, etc, and she's a musician, so we have some things in common. We've been communicating through MySpace lately and she graciously offered to help me figure out my ring sling (I suspect that I'm doing it right, but that Scout is just not a fan yet, I dunno) and have me over for lunch. It will be nice to get out and interact socially.

I'm debating on whether or not I want to go back to church this Sunday. I was going to wait until Scout is 6 weeks old, and she'll only be 5 weeks at that time, but I'm really missing it and feel like we may be ready. Although, I did find myself in a social situation this past weekend and felt VERY protective and uneasy the whole time. Honestly, I was a wreck. I realize this crazy hormonal new-mommy protectiveness will fade (well, somewhat).....but for now, I almost feel sick when people other than DH and my mom hold her. Am I a freak?

Maybe I'm not ready to return to church. I just know that people will ask to hold her....and I won't want to hurt their feelings, but I'm not ready to start passing her around from person to person. One of our good friends said that his grandma always used to tell new mommas in their family, "Now don't you be fannin' that baby around! Ya hear?"

So, I'm not a freak....I'm just following some good old-fashioned granny advice.

posted by Unkempt Mommy @ 12:49 PM,

5 Comments:

At Mon May 21, 04:34:00 PM CDT, Shawna Lee said...: I made my first mommy friend at LLL, and she helped me with my sling, too. I took Topher to church for the first time in the sling, and if anyone wanted to see him, I just popped it out a bit so they could see his face. If they asked to hold him, I simply said, "Oh, he's so comfy in there, I don't want to risk getting him all fussy!" I hope she comes around and starts liking it. I used to fold Topher up like a little criss-cross-applesauce indian-sitting bug in there. He LOVED it!!!
At Mon May 21, 07:15:00 PM CDT, Annika said...: It is always OK to refuse to let people hold her! But I do see how it might be hard at church. It never came up for me, but I always planned, if someone wanted to hold him and I wasn't comfortable with it, to say something like, "His pediatrician warned me that his immune system is weak right now, so we're not letting anyone hold him. Sorry!" (It's nonsense, mostly, but people tend to think doctors are authority figures and therefore listen to them over parental instinct. Which is even more nonsense, but I bet it would work.)
At Mon May 21, 07:15:00 PM CDT, Annika said...: Oh, I think Shawna Lee's response is even better!
At Tue May 22, 09:52:00 AM CDT, Lee said...: I agree with Shawna Lee - get that sling figured out before Sunday and get Scout nice and comfy in there - good and snug so it looks tricky to get her out! :)
Worked for us!!

or, even better - in my experience, people will seldom take the baby from Daddy - not sure why, but maybe dh could hold her or even sling her.
At Tue May 22, 02:10:00 PM CDT, Wendy @ WMF said...: I, personally, think it's great that you haven't taken Scout out much. I have never had anyone ask me to take a baby out of a sling, but my oldest daughter hated the sling. She also hated the carseat, the bouncy seat, the swing, the crib... I pretty much held her until she was about 7 months old. Once she started crawling things got a little bit easier for me. She is 11 now and shows absolutely no adverse reaction to being held constantly. I hope this is coming across as a "light at the end of the tunnel" story rather than a "horror" story! :)