Babies!

My best friend, B, just had her first baby. A beautiful little girl with a shock of dark hair weighing in at a nice seven pounds plus. It’s very exciting. Well, it’s exciting for me – as a young woman of certain breeding age that is surrounded by friends and colleagues having babies left, right, and centre. Literally.

What does B having a baby mean? Presents! Off I toddled to Mothercare in search of that perfect gift. Boy was I disappointed. Plastic, plastic, plastic. I swear practically everything in that shop was covered in plastic or had some sort of plastic accoutrement attached to it. Why would I want to surround a delicate newborn child with this nasty and often toxic substance?

It’s no secret in my household that, to Bron’s increasing terror, I’m getting a bit broody. And it makes me wonder, what on earth am I going to do when/if I am lucky enough to have a baby one day? Can you get baby bottles that aren’t plastic? What did mothers used to do? Just breastfeed until the babies were weaned? What about babies that had trouble breastfeeding? Did they just have to struggle on without? Maybe these questions are terribly naïve, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll have to research the child rearing methods of South American rainforest tribes, find out how they do it. I don’t think I’ll suggest this to B, though – after a 60 hour labour she might just keel over in shock.

Meanwhile, thank goodness for the local businesses that survive in my local town. There are two wonderful children’s shops full of a more traditional style of toy and mother’s goodies, Laurie’s Toybox and Mums and Little Ones. After considerable deliberation I chose a beautiful, soft rabbit-come-snuggle-blanket for baby E, made by Moulin Roty. No plastic labels, no plastic packaging, just a lovely chunky cardboard presentation box. I hope both B and E like it; I quite fancy one for myself.