The Adventures of Fat Baby; Swings, Bouncers, and Bumbos

The first words out of the doctors mouth upon pulling Charlie's head from my surgery stricken stomach, were "boy hes got a lot of hair!", shortly followed by "hes a big boy!", followed by "its a boy!", which I thought we had already covered? And I guess Charlie was kind of big, a little less than 8 pounds, but kind of short, coming in at only 20 inches. So not extremely large for a newborn by any means. But. I had no idea what I had in store in for me...

Here we are, at 6 months old, with the fattest baby on the planet. I love fat babies, don't get me wrong. I love to squish their chubby cheeks, and tickle their sticky rolls, and blow raspberries all over their ooey gooey tummies, but... providing for a fat baby, that's a whole new chapter.

One day fat baby was lounging in his swing, not moving. He was moving (kicking and squeaking, doing all that cute baby stuff), but the swing wasn't moving. The swing was turned on, the music was playing, he just wasn't swaying like he should have been. My husband said something like "it needs new batteries again?", and I said something like "geez". A totally casual conversation that neither of us payed much attention to. We have a lot of those. Later that day, or maybe it was the next day, while my husband was gone, I put fat baby into his swing, turned it on, and walked away. Upon my return, I saw that fat baby, again, wasn't swaying. Hmm. Now that I wasn't distracted by the computer, or trying to eat lunch, or whatever it was that I was doing the day before, I could really asses the situation. It didn't take me more than 5 seconds to stumble on the realization that "oh crap, the swing isn't moving, because hes too heavy to move". I turned the swing up as high as it would go, gave it a nudge, and sure enough, fat baby was rocking back and forth and falling asleep in no time.

And then I noticed, when I put fat baby into his bouncer, he sunk. Poor baby. He sunk so low that bouncing was no longer an option. He could still play with the dangly toys, but bouncing was out. Are you kidding me? Whats the weight limit on this thing anyways? ...25 pounds. What?! Why would somebody play such a cruel joke on me! Wait, if the weight limit is 25 pounds for the bouncer, whats the weight limit for the swing?? WHAT?! 25 pounds?! WHY! Then whats the weight limit for the bassinet that hangs in his pack n play? Whats the weight limit for his Jumperoo? Whats the weight limit for his walker that hes not even gotten to use yet?! ...all 25 pounds.

*Insert fuming mother here*

I'm not mad that my baby is fat. I love my fat baby. I'm mad that all babies aren't that fat, and I get the crap end of the deal!

So all at once, I look around at fat baby's wonderland of toys. The toys that keep him entertained when my arms need a rest. The toys that let me finish the dishes. The toys that his sister insists on playing with, even though shes too big for them and has way cooler toys. Hes not quite 25 pounds yet, is he? I look at fat baby, who is smiling up at me and yanking on the loose ends of my ponytail. Even with handfuls of my messy hair in his chubby little fists, I can't help but turn to mush when he giggles. He is definitely 25 pounds. But hes 25 pounds of pure angel, that's for sure. And the weight limits on those things, really, its not like the dang thing is going to snap in half as soon as the kid gains another pound, right? I sent the bouncer and swing to a toy cemetery that I like to call Craigslist, but the Jumperoo has got to stay. And now hes coordinated enough to play in his exersaucer, which has a 32 pound weight limit, so thats a life saver. That buys me another week at least :)

But my very favorite of all of fat baby's seats? His Bumbo. Not just because he looks ridiculously cute when stuffed into such a tiny space, and not just because it always seems to give him the hiccups, but because when fat baby is in his Bumbo, I have to literally pop his legs into place. Like clicking a puzzle piece down. His legs are larger than life, and don't drift easily into their grooves. And when picking fat baby up out of his bumbo, I have to put my foot down on the seat to hold it into place, otherwise the Bumbo comes off the ground with him. This is much harder than it sounds, by the way. The first few times this were hilarious, as I'd hold him in the air with a seat stuck to his butt, but quickly turned into nothing more than annoyance as every time I was in a rush, I'd end up flinging the empty Bumbo halfway across the room while prying it off of him.

So whats a Mother of a fat baby to do? Love her fat baby, sell all of his baby toys, even though he is still a baby and just too big in size to play with them, and buy a new Rainforrest themed high chair with a built in toy center and a much higher weight limit.

Maybe next week in the Adventures of Fat Baby, we can talk about trying to stuff a 6 month old into size 18m clothing, or maybe how strong your left arm can get simply by holding fat baby for 15 minutes while stirring a pot of boiling noodles. Stay tuned. Because we have so much to talk about.