A what?
What the fuck is that, really? Without knowing, I went to the interweb and posted a Facebook plea to borrow said pack-and-play. The responses fell into two categories:
1) "Of course you can borrow mine but I live at least 300 miles away from you."
2) Instructions on how to MacGuyver a pack-and-play from various household items.
I still didn't know what it was and no one could give me one anyway.
I finally took the time to look it up on the Google machine and found that it is what we used to call, back in the old days, a "playpen." More accurately, I guess it's a "portable playpen." Whatever. Pack-and-play clearly does not accurately describe the item so I don't know how I could have been expected to know what it was. And yes, I tend to avoid baby showers.
Look, here's the deal. My nephew, El Frijolito, is only 9 months old but, like all modern kiddles, he travels like a spoiled rock star, with tour bus-loads of baby items that I'm not going to pretend I understand. And whenever I think of children and their accoutrements, I think of Max and Bettina.
It's one of my favorite Absolutely Fabulous episodes. Eddy is all anxious because she remembers her friends as this:
They were minimalist and oh-so-judgemental back in the day. When Eddy and Patsy go to visit their new über-chic apartment and bring a wine bottle, there is literally no place to put it. Flash forward to the present time and Eddy is throwing away everything in her home in anticipation of their visit. However, when Eddy opens the door upon their arrival, she sees something like this....
...entering her front door. She's horrified that her once-minimalist friends are now weighed down with the sundry of modern parenting. Max and Bettina are the quintessential helicopter parents (well, Bettina is) and they are trying to teach the baby advanced vocabulary while he is still an infant. And the baby needs constant stimulation, hence the sherpa-like presentation of Max, bogged down by all of baby's accoutrements.
The day was saved by the Spazz's cousin, who drove 45 minutes to our apartment and dropped off her pack-and-play. She also loaned us a baby seat chock full with little toys and a rocking-sleepy-chair (I have no idea what the official names of these products are, so here is a photo....please let me know if you know).
Look, I'm not going to pretend that I understand all this baby stuff. I really don't understand babies. Spazz and I are one of those childless-by-choice couples and we're both a little intimidated by tiny, crawling humans in our apartment. But, I have to say, it was all worth it. El Frijolito is freaking adorable and fun as all get out.
It would have been nice, however, if he had not chosen his visit with us to meet his developmental milestone of "stranger anxiety." I will never regain my full hearing.
