Hotslings and Moby Wraps

Jeff and I have found Portland to be the perfect place to begin our little adventure.  Seeing two guys with varying amounts of grey hair walk in with a four day old does not phase anyone here, which is really nice. 

We have also discovered the crunchiest of crunchy baby stores, Bella Stella.  It's a baby consignment shop that specializes in all sorts of hyper organic stuff and carries kids clothes with names like "knucklehead" and "urban guerrilla anarchist baby gear."  (Ok, maybe that last one was a meet up poster I saw tacked to the telephone pole outside.)

We went in to Bella Stella because we are getting ready for the flight back to DC.

Wise people whom we trust recommended that we get a sling to carry Jack because it allows you to carry the baby right on your body, frees both hands, and has the baby stashed away so that well-meaning, but disease-laden strangers can't cough up congratulations and cootchie coos.  

(FYI: Last night when I had "Jackson-Watch," I offered a thousand apologies for every time I was the unknowing, well-meaning disease vector to a newborn.)

The sling we are using is made by "HotSlings."  www.hotslings.com   For those of you trapped at home and worried about a recession/depression, etc., here is a perfect way to make people pay outrageous amounts of money for what is basically a loop of fabric that can be doubled back on itself.  

(If none of this makes sense, just go to the Hotslings website.  You will see lots of pouty-lipped women modeling the slings with what must be drugged children.  Jeff and I have been working on our pouty-lipped, smiling stance.  Jackson is thus far unimpressed.)

We were initially concerned about how goofy we would look in the Hotsling.  THEN we tried on the Moby Wrap.  The Moby Slingis even more money for less manufacturing.  The Moby Wrap is a piece of soft stretchy fabric that is about 3 feet wide and 25 feet long.  I kid you not.  It was so long that as I draped it over my neck (like a scarf) a full yard of fabric on each side of me lay on the floor.  My first thought was "Hmmm, how much stuff can I drag up into the folds of cloth and then wrap around me and the baby.  I could just  see someone putting this thing on in a truck stop bathroom in Manassas.  "Oh don't mind the floor.  Someone mopped it in 1985 and only three people have expired here since...."

I won't explain the complicated maneuvers required to put it on, but instead refer you to the website, http://www.mobywrap.com/t-instructions.aspx#WrapInstructions

In the fifteen minutes it took me, Jeff, and the very sweet, incredibly competent and totally crunchy helper to twirl me into the Moby Wrap, three different women customers came up to me and swore the Moby Sling had saved their lives.  It apparently has also been instrumental in instigating the "Eat Local Food" effort, reducing global warming by a factor of 10, and some have even linked it to restarting the peace process.

Even with all that going for it, the Moby Sling was just more crunch than we could muster,  so we opted for the Hotsling.  

Now if I can just get my pouty lip thing down.