Baby Bjorn

I went to a baby shower this Saturday. It was one of those Sex & the City moments for me where I was the only chick there who hadn't popped out at least one kid. And I had no one along to keep me company. Like I said, I was the only one who wasn't a mother.

The conversations were like a different language to me. I tried to make the polite conversation and asked how old their kids were, etc. But the convo stopped after approximately one question because I had no idea how to respond. When asked: "How old is he?" one mother stated: "He's 23 months." I said: "Oh, so he's almost 2." Her: "23 months." I don't get the whole 15 months, 82 months thing. I thought the counting of months stopped after the kid turned 1. Apparently I was wrong. So when does it end? When will I get to stop doing math in my head: "Okay...so 17 months means he's almost a year and a half..." I completely understand that these "month" milestones mean something about the kid developmentally. I get that. But why do I care? I haven't the slightest clue as to what month a kid starts talking or walking, etc. Am I supposed to blurt out: "Oh, so he's walking, talking, and making boom boom in the toilet now because he's 36 months old?" Or "Wow, he's walking already? He's only 5 months old. That's fast!" I don't have a clue and I hate how it makes me feel stupid. When presented with a "month" age, my eyes start to glaze over and I just say: "Oh, uh huh. That's great. Cute kid."

After speaking to my mom about this conversation, she said: "She just didn't want her baby to grow up. 23 months is saying that she doesn't have a 2-year-old yet." Which this makes sense because after telling the 2-year-old's mother that I didn't know what "23 months" was supposed to mean she laughed and said: "Well yeah, he's still 1." I exercised amazing restraint by not saying: "Well, he really is closer to 2. You might as well just say almost 2."

Other conversations included this one mother's experiences with garage saling. She has a nemesis. It's a woman she sees around town at all of the same garage sales and she can't stand this woman because she buys up all the cheap stuff early and then sells it on ebay. Yet this first woman will buy the stuff off of ebay off of the nemesis. She even asked her once: "So how much are you gonna charge me for these on ebay?" And the way she asked it was sort of snide like she was doing something wrong! I wanted to say: "Hey, if I were a stay-at-home mom I'd do the same thing to get some extra income!"

Another complaint by the above mother regarding her nemesis: "I bought a baby bjorn off of her and it was all stained and torn blah blah blah" First of all, I have no idea what a baby bjorn is other than one quarter member of ABBA as an infant. I didn't even know he was for sale. And look at that beard. He's bound to be stained because of that crumb catcher. What'd ya expect? :) Second of all...okay there really is no second-of-all. I'm still mystified as to what a baby bjorn is to have a second-of-all. When I heard the word "Bjorn" I almost blurted out: "Oh I love him. Waterloo is my favorite. Fernando comes in 2nd place..."

There were a host of other topics that just had me completely confused. Despite all the talk over various baby-related stuff, I had a great time. Mostly I go to these things to contemplate why someone would want a cake made out of diapers (seriously, what does cake have to do with diapers?). Or that in order to push a stroller anymore you have to first figure out the riddle of the Sphinx (we spent an hour showing the mother all the various functions...there are way too many options on how to place your baby in a stroller nowadays. You can't just stick him in there anymore. You must study sun placement and whether you want to look at the baby or does the baby want to look at the world, etc). But mostly I go for the food. The delicious baby shower spread that is always put out there for you to graze upon. It's hard when you have friends that are in a different place in life than you are. And then there was cake and all was right with the world.