Rubber Ducky
6/23/17 -
Rubber Ducky
With our boys being eight years apart, a lot of new baby inventions made caring for our second child (THE SPARE) easier than the first (THE HEIR). I’ve used these pseudonyms so as not to embarrass them even more that I already have. I got the idea from the British press who named the royal family’s two boys, William and Harry, the same. I followed suit.
THE HEIR arrived in 1985. With a first child, we had the best of everything the first time around. Our Amish wooden high chair was no different. Do you know how hard it was to rub off caked-on food from the wood on that high chair? The slats were the worst. I should have just gotten one with the plastic tray. But, ohhh, nooo! We had to have the best for the first born. Dropping a pacifier on the ground was certainly a biggie as you either boiled it later to sterilize it before using it again, or worse, just threw it away. Germs! No 3-second rule. It was damaged goods. You better have brought a ton of passies with you everywhere you went because they were eventually going to fall out of your baby’s mouth.
The sippy cup in 1986 was like a hard plastic ball cut in half with a spout on top that twisted off and handles on each side of the bottom half. After filling it with juice, you screwed the spout top part to the bottom half part and hoped that your child never dropped it. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. They dropped it, they threw it, and they even stepped on it. The top part popped off from this wear and tear and there was spilled juice all over the kitchen floor. YUCK!
But a new invention came along by the time THE SPARE arrived. This modern sippy cup had a new mechanism that used springs which held the top on better and when dropped, the top of the cup stayed on and didn’t cause a mess. I LOVED it! I was more relaxed with the second child, too. If his pacifier dropped on the ground, I just wiped it against my slacks and stuck that sucker right back in from where it fell out. Dirt has nutrients, right?
And I solved my messy high chair dinner situation, too. Wasn’t bath time always after dinner? I learned a new trick. I placed THE SPARE in the tub in his light blue BABY BATH TUB RING seat that had 4 suction cups and fed him then and there. Yep. Right in the tub. It was a contained mess. Afterward, I just sprayed and washed him off. Problem solved. It was a 2-fer!
But I did worry later that since he ate so many meals in the tub before and during bath time (sometimes I just put him in the tub to feed him even if I wasn’t giving him a bath), that like the conditioning of Pavlov’s dog, when THE SPARE grew up he might feel hungry and crave food every time he bathed and he’d wonder why.
Rubber Ducky
With our boys being eight years apart, a lot of new baby inventions made caring for our second child (THE SPARE) easier than the first (THE HEIR). I’ve used these pseudonyms so as not to embarrass them even more that I already have. I got the idea from the British press who named the royal family’s two boys, William and Harry, the same. I followed suit.
THE HEIR arrived in 1985. With a first child, we had the best of everything the first time around. Our Amish wooden high chair was no different. Do you know how hard it was to rub off caked-on food from the wood on that high chair? The slats were the worst. I should have just gotten one with the plastic tray. But, ohhh, nooo! We had to have the best for the first born. Dropping a pacifier on the ground was certainly a biggie as you either boiled it later to sterilize it before using it again, or worse, just threw it away. Germs! No 3-second rule. It was damaged goods. You better have brought a ton of passies with you everywhere you went because they were eventually going to fall out of your baby’s mouth.
The sippy cup in 1986 was like a hard plastic ball cut in half with a spout on top that twisted off and handles on each side of the bottom half. After filling it with juice, you screwed the spout top part to the bottom half part and hoped that your child never dropped it. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. They dropped it, they threw it, and they even stepped on it. The top part popped off from this wear and tear and there was spilled juice all over the kitchen floor. YUCK!
But a new invention came along by the time THE SPARE arrived. This modern sippy cup had a new mechanism that used springs which held the top on better and when dropped, the top of the cup stayed on and didn’t cause a mess. I LOVED it! I was more relaxed with the second child, too. If his pacifier dropped on the ground, I just wiped it against my slacks and stuck that sucker right back in from where it fell out. Dirt has nutrients, right?
And I solved my messy high chair dinner situation, too. Wasn’t bath time always after dinner? I learned a new trick. I placed THE SPARE in the tub in his light blue BABY BATH TUB RING seat that had 4 suction cups and fed him then and there. Yep. Right in the tub. It was a contained mess. Afterward, I just sprayed and washed him off. Problem solved. It was a 2-fer!
But I did worry later that since he ate so many meals in the tub before and during bath time (sometimes I just put him in the tub to feed him even if I wasn’t giving him a bath), that like the conditioning of Pavlov’s dog, when THE SPARE grew up he might feel hungry and crave food every time he bathed and he’d wonder why.
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