A day in the life of the sling-less

This is a continuation of the previous post, since I didn’t post for two weeks.

I lost my sling last weekend, my beautiful wonderful sling that I carry Isaiah around in all the time. I left it in a coffee shop, and they threw it away because they thought it was just a giant piece of fabric. I almost cried when I found out. It has been so hard to do anything since he's used to being carried around all the time in it. I've only been able to do things that need only one arm at a time. I had to go grocery shopping with out it, and I actually had to call my mom and ask her how to shop without a sling. It was rather embarrassing. Luckily, Isaiah is incredibly mellow, so I just put a bunch of soft blankets in the seat of the grocery cart that older kids usually sit in and propped him up in that. It worked out alright, but I miss my sling. A lot. I'm pretty surprised with myself, though, because even without the sling, I made two cheesecakes and got our closets cleaned out and several boxes packed and did normal housework. I just did it all very, very slowly.

Michael and I were going to get a new one from the same place as the old one - Kari-me.com. It's a European site, so the price was in euros, and 37 euros didn't sound that bad. Just to be sure, though, we double checked with a currency exchange site and found out that meant $69. We were shocked - it's just a piece of fabric. Luckily, we found the same thing from a place in California - mobywrap.com, and it was half that price. Again, it's just a piece of fabric, so it might seem like we're overpaying, but it's an amazing thing. Honestly, it's like I'm buying third arm for myself.

This week has been pretty crazy on the home front. Michael is working feverishly to get everything prepared for his portfolio show. (If you want to find out more about his show or see some of his work, go to www.2006manifesto.com) I've been trying to take Isaiah out somewhere every day in order to keep distractions to a minimum. Tomorrow, Isaiah and I are going to visit the arboretum with Grandma Walz. I'm excited to spend some more time with her. We have also been taking a lot of walks in this beautiful weather. We took a 2 hour walk the other night, which was twice as long as it should have been because I took a funny turn and got lost. We ended up in a beautiful park somewhere in north Minneapolis, though, and Isaiah had a good time and got lots of fresh air.

Isaiah has started batting at objects now, which is fun to see. We'll prop him up in front of his Old McDonald Farm, which has toys that hang down and swing around in time to music, and he'll bat his little hands at the swinging animals to make them rattle. He also "talks" to them, which is fun to hear. Michael and I are able to carry on pretty good conversations with him now that go something like this:
"So Isaiah, what did you do today?"
(silence and quizzical looks from Isaiah)
"Did you eat lots of milk and pee a bunch of times today?"
"Aaagh, aagh wa aagh."
"Oh, I see, you burped lots of times too."
"Huh aaagh huh uh eeee."

Isaiah has also begun to drool excessively. In fact, I thought that he might be teething incredibly early because he leaves puddles of drool all around. I think, though, that it's just because he's smiling a bunch and talking more, so his mouth is open more often and drool just comes out as a consequence. Whatever the reason, though, I now have wet spots all over my shirt where Isaiah dribbles on me, and he has to wear a bib on top of his outfits all the time. He's cutest bald, chubby, toothless, drooly, bib and diaper wearing little guy I've ever seen.