San Francisco Dad

Dude, Where’s My Baby?

Now that SFBaby is becoming increasingly mobile, it’s getting harder and harder to keep track of her. Gone are the days where we could set her down and be assured of finding her in roughly the same place we left her.

When SFDad and SFMom chat about the baby after everyone gets home from work and/or play, the conversation is less likely to be about “What did she eat today?” and more along the lines of “Hey, where is the baby, anyway?”

The best demonstration of SFBaby’s newfound independence is at the playground. It used to be that we could stroll up to any playground, drop her in a swing, and amuse her with 10 or 15 minutes of pushing.

These days, once she gets to the playground, she needs to be moving around. RIGHT NOW. SFDad can set her down in one end of the playground, only to find her on the other side in a matter of seconds. I know that this isn’t terribly shocking news to the rest of the world, but we haven’t yet gotten used to the idea of her moving.

SFDad also needs to revise his list of playground selection criteria. Since SFBaby isn’t entirely stable on her feet yet, we prefer to play in places that have lots of bouncy rubber ground (versus concrete). Thus, “having an enclosed rubber-ground play space” is now a top priority, and our usual playground is a little lacking in this area.

Now that she is mobile, SFBaby’s favorite playground activity is stealing toys that belong to other babies or kids. Although she’s not yet old enough to understand the difference between “mine” and “yours”, she is old enough to start crying whenever she doesn’t get what she wants.

SFDad just figured out yesterday that he’s going to need to start bringing her own toys to counteract this. As if the diaper bag wasn’t jammed full of enough stuff already…but it’s for a good cause!

Tags: playground, running, walking