#workinitmama

[workinitmama]

what truly creates and maintains a bond

*note: i recently asked friends to provide me with short writing prompts. something i realize i miss is writing creatively, not just policy. so i’m going to try to write once a week or so. prompt will be the headline of the post. low pressure. so maybe prose, vignettes or really sappy crappy poetry. you’ve been warned.*

1 pound of heart split 2 cups loyalty ¼ cup patience 3 tablespoons passion 2 tablespoons compromise ½ teaspoon forgiveness Add a pinch of independence and a heaping of laughter

Mix well for endless nights and beautiful mornings. Stir in communication, sighs, cries and Pour into an ironclad mold. Sprinkle with shared dreams of a future.

Bake at 375 degrees for eternity or until a toothpick comes out covered in love.

[workinitmama]

The Beginning and The End

Wraps: Bijou Abstract Daybreak 8 and Bijou Blast Remix ?

Company: Bijou

Content: 100 percent cotton/ Eco2cotton and tencel

Wearer: A 4 year old, 39 lb. princess-sized pain

Base size: 8

Recently, I’ve been thinking about our babywearing “journey.” Journey makes it sound so dramatic, amirite? Especially when wearing Olivia was a method of just surviving every single day as a working mom.

As movements in the babywearing “world” (again pretentious) for members from marginalized backgrounds expose just how pervasive racism and other structural inequities are in something that is supposed to be so pure, I have been mulling tapping out. My daughter is four. Our ups are fewer. Bills need to be paid. I’m tired of yelling #youcannotignorethis. One wrap is a helluva lot of matte lipsticks.

And I’m just weary. Weary of calls to educate. Weary of folx seeking only to repudiate what I know and have experienced for their own comfort. Weary of being tagged in BWD for the next round of nonsense.

That started out way heavier than I intended. As Angelica Schuyler says, rewwwinnnnnnndddddd....

We are almost to the end of this phase of our life. And I’ve been reflecting on how much I’ve changed since the first time I put Olivia on my back years ago.

Enter Bijou.

What’s Bijou got to do with this? Not a lot. And everything.

Jaime Gassman, owner of Bijou, messaged me one night with an offer to try out Abstract Daybreak in an 8. AN EIGHT. My base size. I naturally said yes. It arrived in gorgeous coral pink and shiny gray. And that package was skinnnnnnnty like me back before I discovered tacos and only drank hard liquor. Yea right. No way I’m going to like this. Shoulda stuck to BrandNameILoveButWontName-o.

Then, two (or so) days later Bijou Blast Remix arrived from my dear friend Tracy Wu. I picked it up and said, “Woah. Now THIS I can be down with.” It was heavy heavy. Like your favorite double double cheeseburger with extra bacon and you wonder how you’re going to get your mouth around it heavy. Yea, thick is what Mama likes.

Look. There’s my butt. You’re welcome.

First up was Daybreak. We took it with us to Old Navy to buy Olivia a coat at nap time. Ultimate test for her patience with me and my patience with her father. We started with a standard double hammock, my go-to carry. And yall. It was glorious to tie in front with tails. GLORIOUS. #thisbodybabywears and we need a size 8 base. The entire time I wrapped, I was skeptical. More skeptical than I was of her dad at our first date where he didn’t pay for my Starbucks latte (I mean, it’s $4. SERIOUSLY?). But just like that date, I was wooed. I was surprised. And I was smitten by the time I tied off. No weight on my shoulders. No weight on my back. Just a spiderweb of wonders holding this overtired preschooler to my back.

Now I’m gonna be honest. I took her down after 30 minutes to try on coats and put her back up in a ruck tied with a knotless finish. It was not great. It was painful like going to get tacos only to hear they are all out of steak. Yes, I’m still bitter. Not the carry for my big kiddo and my picky shoulders. But this is my ultimate base size wrap right now.

Then was Blast. I don’t have any wearing photos as I broke my cell phone, but we wore this around the house to clean and for nap time. It’s thickness personified. It definitely wrapped short for me, but held a great half-knot with ease. Wrapping with it wasn’t as effortless, but there was no need to adjust or be careful. She went up and she stayed up. We bounced, swayed, cried and sighed. Blast was a rock. I think this would be a great option in a short size for a rock solid torso carry. Or a ruck tied at shoulder. Multiple-pass carries just weren’t happening for us in this.

Oh, that’s right. What does all this have to do with my babywearing career?

When I started wearing, I looked for wraps like Blast: thick, solid, sturdy, unmoving. When I was inexperienced and impatient, they held my daughter comfortably. Now toward the end, I look for wraps like Daybreak: thin yet strong, glidey, functional and not just aesthetically pleasing. 

I have always been a brand loyalist. I have bought multiples of one company, sold them all to fund multiples from another and then sold all of those to buy multiples from another company. I’m a serial monogamist. I will make a relationship out of dust and a piece of twine. But you can choose. You can love one brand and another and even a third. Your cred as a wrapper or wearer doesn’t diminish because you love Bijou and three other brands plus own a Kinderpack. And it doesn’t diminish because you have your One Wrap, the only one you own. YOU make the carrier, not the other way around. YOU make this community. Swim against the tide or explore a new stream altogether.

My advice would be: embrace the change. Try the wrap you never thought you would. Challenge yourself to try a wrap quality you are iffy about. And at the end of it all, remember: our differences are what make this community better. It’s what makes it worth the journey.

Oh, and here come more pictures.

[workinitmama]

#RealLifeReview 

Trinity Phlox 7

Wrappee: 3.5 years old, 40 pounds

Content: 100 percent cotton

When I opened the tote containing this wrap, I gasped and was instantly smitten. Green is a color we are not drawn to, but this wrap, with its color of fresh green grass after a summer storm and Princess Tiana's wedding dress, captured our hearts instantly. I never knew how lovely green could be until I met Phlox. Phlox is incredibly see-through. I thought I put a hole in it trying to pull it from the wash, but it was just the weave structure. Hold it to the light, and sunshine streams through. We did experience minor thread shifting, but that was easily remedied with a wash and tumble. I once called a dense wrap thin. I never knew what thin was until I met Phlox. That's not to say it is weak. It is like a spider's web in both it's intricacy, delicacy and strength. With the proper (OK, close to proper) technique, even a preschooler feels like air. Yes. I am serious. That is not typical gushing or hyperbole. It has its not-so-shining carries for us. At her weight and with my weak shoulders, I was not a fan of single-layer carries. The sloppy ruck may have been strangle-proof, but my shoulders ached after a grocery store run. But... double hammock. Oh, dear sweet double hammock. Wearing for a quick up for 20 minutes, I almost forgot she was there -- save the screeching to watch Zootopia for the 11th time in as many hours.I thought with only beastly thick wraps could I find the right comfort for us and be comfy enough on my spaghetti shoulders. I never knew what supportive was until I met Phlox. Wrapping with Phlox is like your daily drive to your favorite taco place or to the grocery store: you don't have to think about it. You get in the car, you turn on the ignition and suddenly you're there. With a double hammock, I felt like I finally could get passes tight enough to make it serviceable. It stretches across OliviaElsa's thrashing back with ease, and locks tight like burrs against your favorite leggings. I never knew what glide and microtexture was until I met Phlox. This wrap is everything I could have hoped for, aside from cooler temps, and is the antithesis of everything I associate with thin, airy and even Pavo. I never knew what wrapping could be... until I met Phlox.

[workinitmama]

So I went for a walk tonight. If you haven’t seen the video yet, click the previous link on my page, Workin’ It Mama.

I ended up walking for a bout 40 minutes, more than Mrs. O says I need to each day, before my phone completely died.

I hatched a Poliwag and a Drowzee after walking more than a mile and a half. I got stung by a million and one Weedles and only caught a Caterpie, Oddish and Venonat. #countrypokemon

As it got darker, I got more nervous, mostly as a Black woman in the South walking in a neighborhood where folks call the cop on just about anyone. I’ve been pulled over driving in my own neighborhood, blasting Beauty and the Beast trying to get my daughter to go to bed. I managed to make it home just as it got really dark, but not without pausing to reflect on my status as a Black woman in a country that routinely kills Black people with no consequence.

I’m so sweaty, you would have thought I just stepped out the shower. But it was worth it.