Mall madness

Genevieve reached the one-month marker this Sunday… but was four weeks old last Friday, yet another confusing aspect of parenthood, four weeks does not equal one month. So when they say your child should be able to balance one toe (or some other equally important milestone) at three months do they mean 12 weeks or the 6th of July which is more like 13 or 14 weeks?

In any case the most exciting aspect of the whole month marker is that we can now safely take Evie out into the wide world. Her first foray into the urban forest was a much-needed bra run to the Tucson Mall, not the most thrilling of outdoor adventures but hey you have got to start somewhere. So I figured my best baby-outing bet would be to stuff her full of food and then make a b-line to the car to maximize the amount of time I had before she was hungry and fussy again. Ohh the folly of young motherhood….

We made it to the mall fine but of course I parked on the absolute wrong side of the mall for the store I wanted to go to and had to hike it at least a mall mile to my goal. I am pretty anti clunky stroller these days (while she still light enough to carry I can afford to be) so I had her in the baby sling. For whatever reason this was a curiosity and well-meaning people kept stopping me to ask about her not realizing that my baby-so-cute-not-fussy-clock was ticking.

We made it to the store without incident but man did I have a heck of a time getting things down off of high racks and doing my darndest not to turn my baby into a defacto clothes hanger. So I get ¾ of the way though trying on clothes when the fussy alarm sounds and she starts to cry and I, who am in between trying on bras look down to see my boobs starting to leak (little did I realize I too had a timer) So I fumble my own bra back on and then proceed to feed her in the dressing room hoping that no well meaning worker comes to check on me because I am certainly not comfortable with the public feeding thing yet. Fortunately the babe was fed without incident and I purchased a few items and we headed to the car.

At the car I realized that in my rush to get a well-fed baby into the car I forgot to change her diaper as well. I decided to change it in the car before we left the mall… lets just say she was very productive and I count myself lucky to not have had a great yellow-green disaster to add to our first trip out…