Oh NO she didn’t!

In the past week, I’ve had several people say some interesting, “whoops, should’ve thought about that BEFORE speaking” kinds of things.  I’ve also had quite a few conversations with people about babywearing.  Not like I’m suddenly wearing more now that I have a newborn, I think people just pay more attention to a newborn.

So we were at the play area at the mall with the toddlers, and there was a small group of high school aged or slightly older kids there with their babies.  Since the babies were pretty young, (6 mo and 4 weeks) we were chatting about having babies.   One of the girls asked if the carrier I had on was safe.  As silly of a question as this is, I was willing to cut her some slack given all of the furor as of late over unsafe baby carriers.  I explained that it was very safe and secure.  Then she says, “but you keep a hand on him all the time right?  You don’t ever just let go?”  My reply, “Oh no!  I need my hands free to deal with the toddlers.  Besides, what’s the point of a carrier if you still have to keep a hand on the baby?”  It would kinda be like having a car that still required you to push it along . . . why bother!  So then we somehow got on the topic of cloth diapers.  One of the girls asks, “What’s a cloth diaper?”  Her friend looks at her dumbfounded and says “Just what it sounds like, a diaper that is cloth!!”  ROTFL!  How funny is that?

Alas, she was still confused.

“What do you do when the diaper is dirty?”

“Uh, just dump it in the diaper pail and then eventually wash it.”

“But wait, I don’t understand.   What do you do with the baby while it’s washing, you’re just sitting there waiting for it to dry?”  This question again elicited the dumbfounded look from her friend, who then said, “You have more than just one diaper!”  LMBO!  Too funny!  It was actually a good conversation, she was so curious about everything.  Clearly, she’d never been exposed to baby carriers or cloth diapers.

So the doozie of a comment came from another person.  I was at Wal-mart waiting for a prescription.  I had the newborn wrapped up in a front reinforced torso rebozo.  As usual, people that walked by commented “What a cute baby!” or “Whoa, he’s all snuggled up in that thing!” or “Well isn’t that creative!”  Most of the time I ignore the comments since they aren’t directed AT me, rather, just ABOUT me.  One of the ladies working at the pharmacy comes over and says, “I just have one question . . .”

Wait for it . . .

…

…

wait for it . .  .

…

…

…

…

“How do you drive with that thing?”  Are you kidding me?  Did she ACTUALLY just ask that question?!?!?!?!?  I didn’t even know how to respond!

I’m pretty sure I had a totally shocked look on my face as I said “Uh, I don’t!  He goes in the carseat!”  You’d think she’d realize the foolishness of her comment.  But no, she takes it even further . . . “Yeah, I was wondering how that would work, I was thinking the seat belt would get in the way!”  Oh NO she didn’t!

Again, looking completely shocked I say “Uh no, that’s just horrifying!”  The other people at the pharmacy also were pretty surprised, and the people who commented did so in a way that was clearly poking fun at the woman.  My favorite comment . . . “Oh no, just let the baby drive . . ha ha ha!”

Seriously, I was just so shocked, I think my jaw was on the floor like 20 minutes later! Yikes!