First place in our Miraculous Giveaway goes to Jennifer, a talented mommyblogger whose son, Anderson, was born on the same day as Gwen.
Jennifer writes:
When first skipping off to Sears to complete our baby registry, I had never even heard of a bouncy chair. To be honest it was one of those things that, pre-baby, I would have rolled my eyes at and thought it was “just another gimmick”.
Fast forward to the end of May, and Anderson is about 5 weeks old. We go over to our friends' place for dinner. They have this wonderful contraption in the middle of their living room floor. It has an aquarium on it. It plays music. It vibrates. It bounces. I’m thinking, “Do these come in my size?” Her daughter, 6 months old at the time, is sitting in there mesmerized, like some sort of drug-induced trance. At this point, I am just as mesmerized as she is. Immediately, I inquire about what this amazing contrivance is and I’m openly invited to let Anderson try it out. I was, at that beautiful moment, introduced to benefit #1:
I got to eat my dinner. With both hands. I was very excited.
As soon as we could pile into the car we headed over to Walmart to see what they had available. We decided on a Bright Stars bouncy chair. No aquarium, but complete with vibrations, bouncing, toys and music. As soon as we got home, we set it up. I was utterly disappointed that Anderson fell asleep for bedtime and we didn’t get to try it out right away. The next day, I put him in there as soon as the opportunity arose. I had a fussy, cranky baby on my hands. Unbeknownst to him, he needed a nap. I bounced him for a couple of minutes with my foot, while checking my e-mail. I looked down from my laptop, and to my sheer and utter joy, I experienced benefit #2:
He was asleep. I think I might have shed a small tear.
Fast forward again to July. We’ve now reached the “Entertain me, Mommy” stage and I’m so stuck for ideas. In desperation I plop Anderson in the bouncy chair and watch in amusement as he discovers the little green frog hanging in front of him. He studies it for a good 10 minutes. I then find out that this frog must be very witty, because he’s provoking some very funny faces and smiles from my son. Benefit #3:
Baby entertainment centre. Almost better than HD.
We’ve now reached August, and Anderson has learned how to wildly bounce himself about, and finds this quite funny. (Benefit #4: Baby Home Gym). For the past couple of days we’d been concerned that Anderson hadn’t had one of those beautiful poosplosions that we always looked forward to. We were discussing what to do, and decided that if he hadn’t gone by tomorrow that we would call the doctor. Rich and I sat down to a game of Settlers of Catan that evening, and naturally, we sat Anderson in his bouncy chair so that we could play and he could be engaged with us. I plopped him in, and set it on vibrate.
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About 10 minutes into the game, I heard rumbling from the depths below. Appropriately, I said “Oh Sh^%!” as I saw a line of Crayola yellow liquid rise up the front of his white shirt. Welcome to benefit #5:
Laxative effects. The experience was truly cathartic, in all regards.
From that day forward, the bouncy chair was not only our dinner companion, our entertainment center, our baby gym, and our naptime favorite but we turned to it to elicit poop if we thought we hadn’t seen enough of it yet. It got very messy. Better yet, we appreciated benefit #6 most of all:
It’s machine washable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fast forward to the end of May, and Anderson is about 5 weeks old. We go over to our friends' place for dinner. They have this wonderful contraption in the middle of their living room floor. It has an aquarium on it. It plays music. It vibrates. It bounces. I’m thinking, “Do these come in my size?” Her daughter, 6 months old at the time, is sitting in there mesmerized, like some sort of drug-induced trance. At this point, I am just as mesmerized as she is. Immediately, I inquire about what this amazing contrivance is and I’m openly invited to let Anderson try it out. I was, at that beautiful moment, introduced to benefit #1:
I got to eat my dinner. With both hands. I was very excited.
As soon as we could pile into the car we headed over to Walmart to see what they had available. We decided on a Bright Stars bouncy chair. No aquarium, but complete with vibrations, bouncing, toys and music. As soon as we got home, we set it up. I was utterly disappointed that Anderson fell asleep for bedtime and we didn’t get to try it out right away. The next day, I put him in there as soon as the opportunity arose. I had a fussy, cranky baby on my hands. Unbeknownst to him, he needed a nap. I bounced him for a couple of minutes with my foot, while checking my e-mail. I looked down from my laptop, and to my sheer and utter joy, I experienced benefit #2:
He was asleep. I think I might have shed a small tear.
Fast forward again to July. We’ve now reached the “Entertain me, Mommy” stage and I’m so stuck for ideas. In desperation I plop Anderson in the bouncy chair and watch in amusement as he discovers the little green frog hanging in front of him. He studies it for a good 10 minutes. I then find out that this frog must be very witty, because he’s provoking some very funny faces and smiles from my son. Benefit #3:
Baby entertainment centre. Almost better than HD.
We’ve now reached August, and Anderson has learned how to wildly bounce himself about, and finds this quite funny. (Benefit #4: Baby Home Gym). For the past couple of days we’d been concerned that Anderson hadn’t had one of those beautiful poosplosions that we always looked forward to. We were discussing what to do, and decided that if he hadn’t gone by tomorrow that we would call the doctor. Rich and I sat down to a game of Settlers of Catan that evening, and naturally, we sat Anderson in his bouncy chair so that we could play and he could be engaged with us. I plopped him in, and set it on vibrate.
About 10 minutes into the game, I heard rumbling from the depths below. Appropriately, I said “Oh Sh^%!” as I saw a line of Crayola yellow liquid rise up the front of his white shirt. Welcome to benefit #5:
Laxative effects. The experience was truly cathartic, in all regards.
From that day forward, the bouncy chair was not only our dinner companion, our entertainment center, our baby gym, and our naptime favorite but we turned to it to elicit poop if we thought we hadn’t seen enough of it yet. It got very messy. Better yet, we appreciated benefit #6 most of all:
It’s machine washable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can read more of Jennifer's hilarious and poignant writing at Adventures of Being a Mommy. Congratulations, Jennifer!
3 comments:
YAY!!!
Very appropriately chosen if I do say so myself....
I'm still sorry that I managed to miss both Gwen and Anderson's births - some midwife!
Thank you!!! I just got it in the mail :D
I also loved the bouncy chair with Callum (and yet hardly used it with Claire ~shrug~)!!
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