Out of desperation today, I dragged Haylee’s humongous exersaucer from the attic as well as the “new” bumbo seat in hopes of finding a magical remedy to produce Happy Wade. He already has every “activity” imaginable all stuffed in our living room. We’re beginning to look like the church nursery. It’s getting a bit ridiculous really. Especially when he doesn’t seem to care for these “activities.” I thought perhaps he would like the “sitting up” feeling instead of the “reclining” action of his bouncer, swing, rocker, and activity mat. Well, he did seem to enjoy them, I suppose, but not as much as he enjoys the activity called “Mommy.”

I also tried a new method I’ve named the “Activity Rotational” which consists of moving him from seat to seat when the whining reaches the level of “I’m not going to stop, mom. Seriously.” We almost circled the room via the Baby Seat Train. He ended in the swing and fell asleep while listening to the demo on the piano. He actually likes the piano demo way, way better than the tinkling little songs on his swing.

I discovered his affinity for the piano one day as I was playing (which hushed him), and then had the brilliant idea of utilizing the demo which gives Mommy time to do something else!!! Chris once doubted the allure of the piano and rashly turned down the volume so he could turn on the tv and actually hear it. Wade didn’t want me to look bad, so he promptly began to fuss. So you see, my piano theory has thus been proven.

I have been wondering what the women of yester-year (is that a word?) did for their clingy babies? I suppose they could have had some sort of sling to carry them around as they did their daily housework and things. I wonder how much of it though could have been they just didn’t pamper babies as much “back in the day”. Life was hard for everyone… including babies, right?

My Uncle Paul would I agree with that I think, since he was child number 8 of the 11 kids and apparently my mom and he are so close in age that she was still occupying the crib when he was born. So that left Uncle Paul to sleep in the dresser drawer. I’m not kidding. He really did sleep in a dresser drawer.

It’s one of those “stories” that you hear so many times and honestly coming from Uncle Paul, the famous (or infamous, I’m not sure) storyteller, you really can’t ever be quite sure of a story’s truth. This particular story has been verified by many others, however, so I do suppose it really did happen. Can you imagine anyone doing that nowadays? Not a chance. We have to have every amenity on the market for our new little bundles of joy. I’m obviously guilty of it as well given I’m living in a church nursery.

They say that Uncle Paul used to cry so loud when he was a baby, and some of the older siblings tried to rock his carriage so he wouldn’t cry. Grandma Bunts actually told them to just let him cry because it would strengthen his lungs! I think things were different then. People’s mindsets were different. They didn’t make their worlds revolve around their children. They couldn’t. Life was hard and was going on even though the baby was crying. I think that my stress wouldn’t be so bad if I could gain some of that mindset from those days…

Wow, I didn’t know I could get so philosophical. Ah, the joys of nap time.