Surrealliste
Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof
There’s an awful lot of focus on what’s good for the baby, isn’t there?
“Babywearing,” as enthusiasts call it, is said to benefit a baby in a number of ways. The baby is kept cozy; he can cuddle against you for warmth, feel your breath rise and fall, and smell your scent. The baby can look all around, or he can look at your face, or he can skip the stimuli and just nuzzle. The gentle, rocking motion of your walk is familiar to him, whether it’s a result of countless hours in your arms or a gently clouded memory from before he was born.
You don’t hear nearly as much about whether “babywearing” can be good for a parent.
Take, for example, the first “real” outing, after you’ve tested the carrier and figured out how to stuff the kid into it and you’ve contorted well enough to buckle all of the straps without dislocating a shoulder and neither of you is yowling. The carrier is no longer a project unto itself; it is a means to go Out, and that is important, because Out (as you have come to realize, all too late) is where Balance is. Something in you needs to walk the city, with your head held up and your arms swinging free. Something in you needs the baby to experience the breeze on his fuzzy scalp. You hope he’ll begin to understand that there’s a great big world out there, waiting for him to see it.
And when you step off the train, he peeks up at you and beams, with slobbery little gums gleaming in the afternoon light. Everything else disappears. For a moment there’s nothing left but the two of you and this incredible new version of love you’re navigating, this chemical-steeped fog of bliss and exhaustion, this insular, gobsmacking love that’ll swallow you whole if you let it (and you do).
You’ll wear it all over your face for the rest of the day, right where everyone can see it. And it’ll look very much like this.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Jenn Wilson and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
