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Diary Of A New Mum -
Week 33
A Baby Cage
This week we decided it was time to put Jessica-Ann into a cage! Well, not
literally. What we had in mind was a play-pen. Even though we have the laziest
baby in the world (still no sign of her wanting to move around), we figured it
was best to get her used to a play-pen before she started to crawl. I looked
around for the best type of play-pen and decided to get one with wooden bars –
similar to her cot.
The prices of these wooden play-pens are ridiculous. Over a hundred pounds at
some stores! We looked again at the cheaper ones then I had a brainwave – we
would buy one on eBay. Previously we have bought a couple of high-chairs on eBay
(I’m not going to say how many high chairs we got through before we found the
right one). I tend to find the whole thing really stressful – the bidding and
then the anxious waiting until, right at the last second, I get outbid by a
couple of pounds…
I had bid unsuccessfully on three play-pens before we won this one. But at half
the price they are in the shops it was certainly worth it. As the item was too
large to post, I had to drive a little way to pick it up from a remarkably calm
mother of two babies, who told me that her youngest screamed every time she
tried to put him in it…
We’ve heard many such horror stories of babies screaming blue murder when put in
their play-pens for the first time, so we were understandably nervous when we
got it home, put it together in the lounge (which now has barely enough room for
our sofa), and then placed Jessica-Ann carefully inside it. We filled it up with
her favorite toys and waited. Jess looked around, picked up one of her cups, and
bashed it against the wooden bars. Then she looked up at us and smiled. A big,
beaming, goofy smile.
Jessica-Ann absolutely loves her little cage. Maybe it’s because it is her own
environment, safe and secure. From behind her bars she can sit and play while
she surveys her world. As long as one of us is around, somewhere, she is happy
to sit and play in her pen for hours. Well, maybe not hours. Minutes, certainly.
And it has freed up my time no end. Whereas before I couldn’t so much as pop out
of the room to go to the bathroom, now I can leave her for a minute or two while
I put on a wash, without worrying about her safety.
A funny thought – Paul and I plan to take photos of Jess in various poses,
hoping one of them will resonate with her choice of career in the future.
Reading a book, for example. (Teacher.) Or bashing a toy drum. Or singing into
her microphone in her plastic fantastic. But when we took a photo of her through
the bars of her cage we looked at each other nervously. Hopefully these will be
the only bars she ever looks out of!
Diary of a New Mum Week 33
A Baby Cage In which I purchase a play-pen and wait to see how Jessica-Ann will react...
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