You Get a Car! And You Get a Car...

We all know that Miss E's batsuit is one of her favourite things. I was thinking today that, in her first five months, she has identified a number of other favourite things.

As I thought about Miss E's favourite things, my neurons connected me to Oprah and her favourite things. As Wikipedia carefully explains, "Oprah's Favourite Things" was an annual segment that appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show from 2002 to 2010... the audience members that were present during the taping of the episode receive items from that year's list for free.

In 2004, every audience member received a brand new car worth approximately $30,000. You get a car! And you get a car! EVERYBODY GETS A CAR!

This made me think... if Miss E was the host of a self-titled, multi-award-winning, nationally syndicated talk show, which had become the highest-rated program of its kind in history, what items would she be giving away in her annual favourite things segment?

If you were lucky enough to be in her audience today, you would receive three things:

1. Oven mitt!

You get a mitt! And you get a mitt! EVERYBODY GETS A MITT!

She loves this oven mitt with a passion. The only thing she loves as much as this mitt is the matching mitt that goes on your other hand.

She loves it when the mitts grab her cheeks.

She loves it when you use it as a puppet and it talks to her.

She loves it when the mitts dance around the kitchen - especially when they "vogue" 90s Madonna style.

Price: It is hard to put a price on this mitt. It has survived Mr. B's bachelor cooking and now resides peacefully in the second drawer down in our kitchen.

Side note: you may be able to see that I am modelling a polar fleece top as well as an oven mitt. Polar fleece is also one of Miss E's favourite things. Her love for polar fleece has been largely bred from familiarity: I have worn polar fleece almost every day since she was born.

2. Galah hand puppet!

You get a galah hand puppet! And you get a galah hand puppet! EVERYBODY GETS A GALAH HAND PUPPET!

Item #2 is actually very closely related to item #1. 

When I saw how much Miss E loved the oven mitt, I thought to myself, "Self, you need to buy this child a hand puppet".

So, off we went today and we found the galah hand puppet at our local op shop. I popped it into the washing machine and the galah hand puppet is as good as new.

After we returned home, we discovered that the galah hand puppet also has a squeaky noise feature. Love it. It has quickly rocketed up the "Miss E's favourite things" list. 

Price: $3. 

3. Night-Night, Baby!

You get Night-Night, Baby! And you get Night-Night, Baby! EVERYBODY GETS NIGHT-NIGHT, BABY!

Sometimes Miss E lies under her playgym and expresses her general dissatisfaction with the world around her. You show her Night-Night, Baby and she loves the world again.

I think she is secretly in love with the baby on the cover.

If she had fine motor skills, the cover of this book would probably be covered with texta love hearts.

If she had fine motor skills, Internet access and a credit card, she'd probably buy the domain: www.ilovenightnightbaby.com.

Night-Night, Baby is not a particularly compelling read. It contains photos of a racially diverse group of babies as they complete their daily routine (e.g. eat, have a bath, and, of course, go to sleep). It lacks a convincing protagonist and a plot. However, Miss E loves it. Maybe it is like reading Who magazine for babies. She likes to know what the other babies are up to.

Price: $6.60 at The Book Depository.

My three key points:

1. Miss E is probably not quite ready for her own, self-titled talk show. We'll re-assess at 12 months.

2. Miss E needs to build stronger relationships with luxury brands so that she has some better stuff to give to her studio audience.

3. Babies really don't care about price when it comes to determining their favourite things.

Getting out of a batsuit is harder than it looks

If, by some lucky coincidence, you happen to hit on something that your baby loves (e.g. a dummy, being held all the time, listening to Fleetwood Mac on repeat), you will inevitably hear comments of this nature: "you're making a rod for your own back there".

In my opinion, the focus on rods being created for backs is very negative. My view has always been: if you find something your baby loves, be happy about it. Rejoice in your genius as a parent.

When comments have been made to me regarding the rod and the back, I have happily said to Mr. B, "Mr. B, WHEN and IF there is a problem, we will deal with that problem at that time. Let us bask in our genius. And turn up that damn Fleetwood Mac, she can't sleep if she can't hear it".

Well, it seems that one of the problems that I had put in the "WHEN and IF" category has jumped on an express train and is headed right for our door. Look out.

We have a problem. Let me explain.

When Miss E goes to sleep, she looks a little like this:

Please note that this is not an actual picture of Miss E. This picture is from the Love to Dream website and depicts a baby in the Love to Dream - Love to Swaddle UP Original.

In our household, we refer to the Love to Swaddle UP Original as the batsuit.

Miss E loves the batsuit. She loves it with a passion. She is addicted to it. The batsuit is like crack cocaine to Miss E.

If you are not familiar with the joy that is the batsuit, you may be wondering: Why, Suse, why does Miss E love the batsuit?

Let me tell you why Miss E loves it so:

Reason #1
If an over-enthusiastic pregnant person (e.g. me) has ever forced you to look at pics of a baby in the womb, you may have noticed that the baby's hands are up by his or her face. So, one reason Miss E loves the batsuit is that it allows her hands to be up near her face and that reminds her of when she was free-floating in the womb of happiness.

Reason #2
It allows her to suck on her hands and this gives great comfort to Miss E. And it seems that sucking on hands through batsuit fabric is the tastiest and most comforting thing in the world.

Reason #3
If Miss E stirs in her sleep, she has a tendency to throw her arms out and this freaks her out. A freaked out Miss E is an awake Miss E and this is bad news in the early hours of the morning. In her batsuit, her arms aren't going anywhere and her little bod is safely contained which is how she likes it.

I am also passionately in love with the batsuit. My reasons are far simpler than Miss E's:

Reason #1
She sleeps in it.

Reason #2
She looks cute in it.

Reason #3
She sleeps in it.

So, now you might be thinking: What is the problem?

The problem is that Miss E loves the batsuit so much, we can't get her out of it.

Without the batsuit, she can't sleep.

You might be thinking: Why don't you just let her keep sleeping in it?

Oh, dear reader, believe me, if it was up to me, I would. I would buy a Janome and learn to sew and make them for her myself. If it were up to me, she would be a middle-aged, married woman, zipped up in a batsuit, sleeping happily next to her husband.

But it is not so simple. As soon as babies start to roll, they can't be in a batsuit anymore. They can roll onto their tummy and the little batsuit that they love so much can prevent them from rolling back. This presents a whole world of danger for Miss E.

We have to get her out of the batsuit.

Hello Rod, welcome to my Back.

About a week ago, I thought to myself, Miss E is pretty chilled out, she might just let the batsuit go with no worries. Well, I tried putting her to sleep without her batsuit and Miss E went from chilled out to FREAKED OUT over the course of about ten minutes. I'd say her thought process went a little like this:

• Here I am in my bassinet. Oh! Hello hands! How strange to see you guys. I don't normally see you here.
• Hands running down the side of a bassinet makes an interesting noise. I will lie here and listen to that for a few minutes.
• Okay, hands, stop making that noise now. Stop it. You are FREAKING ME OUT. STOP IT! OKAY, I'M AWAKE.

At this point, I wasn't too worried. I thought to myself, "Self, you went in too hard, too fast; what we need here is a phased approach".

So, the next night, we kicked off our phased approach.

I unzipped the bottom half of the batsuit so that her little legs had a little more wriggle room. Note: her whole body was still inside the batsuit. Miss E was onto me. And she seemed to know where the phased approach was heading. And she did not like it.

At this point, I thought to myself, "Self, you are tired. You are too tired to implement a phased approach. Zip her up and deal with it at some future point".

The future is now. 

My three key points:

1. Miss E loves the batsuit.

2. I love the batsuit.

3. Send up the bat signal over our bassinet, because we are in trouble.