When WE are the Problem...

Chapter 11 – When WE are the Problem...

I have lots of stories and complaints about people being totally uncool to and around my kids when we take the bus, but of course I realize that we are sometimes an annoying component of their daily commute as well.  Most of the people riding my bus are not Mom’s or Dad’s taking their kids to school or daycare, they are people simply trying to get to work with as much calm and quiet as they can (and since I’m a member of both of these groups, I do empathize with both).

I realize that it can be annoying to have little kids playing, screaming, singing, kicking, etc during one’s daily commute.  Lily has been loud on occasion (I can’t really include Diego in this theme because he never makes a sound on the bus.  He’s actively campaigning for baby of the year – incidentally, he’d love your vote) 
Of course what I see as my darling, adorable, angelic little girl being creative, gifted, entertaining and endearing, the woman across from me will see as loud, annoying, obnoxious and well, loud (had to throw that in twice for good measure). But, for the most part, she really is pretty good -- She’s a city-mouse with 3 years of bus-commuting under her little belt, she knows how to be kind, courteous and respectful ....a mini mass transit pro.  So, with that feather in my cap, I’m going to allow myself to jump from the parent group to the worker group for just a moment and respectfully submit a list of just a few simple things that I think parents taking their kids on the bus should know.  (these are all based on things I have seen other kids do on my bus)

#1 – The bus is not a picnic, a lunch table or a restaurant.  
A few snacks in your bag to keep your kid occupied are a great idea.  Cheerios, pretzels, goldfish crackers…these are normal, easy snacks for the bus and highly recommended.  Yogurt is not.  Feeding your kid yogurt off a spoon on a moving bus is just not a good idea.  Those gross yogurt in a tube things are probably not a great idea either.  Someone’s gonna end up wearing 1/2 of it....and the other 1/2 will end up on the seat, which brings me to....

#2 – Other people will be using the seat after you leave.  
If your kid leaves a dozen cheerios on the seat, brush them off before you leave.  It’s not cool that the next person to sit there will have cheerio crumbs all over their butt all day because you let your kid make a mess and left it there.

 Also, muddy or wet shoes all over the seat.... also not cool.  Of course, please put your baby or toddler into the seat – we don’t want to see them go flying when the bus stops short – but, don’t let her stand on the seat or put her feet all over the place – again, just not cool.

#3 – Fold up the stroller – 
I would LOVE it if I could have brought the stroller onto the bus without folding it up.  It would be so much easier to just leave a sleeping baby alone and carry the whole thing on like people do on the subway, but it’s just not allowed.  If you manage to get on through one of the back doors without the driver noticing, you’re going to block the entire doorway and no one can get on or off at the other stops. Or, at some point the driver is going to notice your open stroller, then he/she will loudly announce: “you have to fold the stroller. we are not moving until you fold up the stroller.  we will all sit here and wait until you fold the stroller...” at which point everyone around you will get mad and start yelling, and then we’ll all have to wait while you try to fold up your stroller in a tiny space, then your baby will start crying, then people will yell some more. It’s not fun.  Just do yourself a favor and fold it up before hand. (or better yet, ditch that stroller all together and look into BABY WEARING! –... see Chapter 10) ;)

#4– There is probably a volume button on your kid’s video game.  
Use it.  

#5 – Watch your kid.  
Look, I didn’t sign up for this playdate, but our kids are stuck sitting near eachother on the bus and now they’re playing together.  I think that’s wonderful and I hope they’re having fun, …however – if toys are played with and it’s time to get off the bus and return them to their rightful owner, you might actually have to get involved.  I’m not the only parent aboard this vessel, so please don’t make me be the one to discipline your kid while you sit back and pretend you don’t notice your little darling trying to pocket my daughter’s toys. 

#6 – Please don’t “reason” with your kid while the rest of us listen to him scream or watch him misbehave.  
I would not dream of telling someone how to raise their children.  Lord knows I have no idea what I’m doing, and I don’t claim to know what’s best.  So, far be it from me to question your whacky tactics.  If your kid misbehaves at home and instead of punishing them you ask them to calmly describe their emotions to you, that’s fine.  

That's your headache and years of therapy down the road, but for right now, while your kid is spilling a bottle of glue all over the floor of the bus, don't calmly say, "Blaine, what are you feeling about that?", or "Dakota??  Are our emotions taking over this morning??" -- Immediately take the glue away and tell her to STOP or someone else on the bus probably will.

#7 - Don't let your kid lick the window.

Ummmm, don't let your kid lick the window.



#8 – Carry tissues.  

I don’t know why it seems like kids noses run ten times as much on the bus.  I feel like every time I see a kid on the bus his nose is running.  What’s up with that? 
Anyway, carry tissues in your pocket and help your poor kid out.  
Also, carrying wipes is not a bad idea (NOT feminine cleansing cloths, as discussed in chapter 1!!!) -- 

#9 – Don’t worry about the rest of us.  
Honestly, if your baby is crying, don’t worry about it.  Many of the people on this bus are miserable a-holes that would knock an old lady over sooner than they’d give her a seat.  So, if you get a bus-full of dirty looks because your baby is crying (and sadly, you probably will), so be it.  Don’t let it bother you.  Just worry about your precious bundle and the rest of us can all F off. 

Thank you for riding New York City Transit!

Baby Wearing

Chapter 10 - Baby Wearing

Yes, that’s what it’s called…”baby wearing” and if you’re going to ride the bus in New York City, it’s the only way to go. I’m a big fan of it to get my kids around, mainly because we take the bus and the stroller is just too much to deal with on the bus.  Take a screaming, squirming baby out of the stroller and hold her with one hand while you collapse and fold up the stroller with the other hand, quickly carry the baby and the stroller onto the bus before it pulls away (since it took you so long to get the damn stroller closed sometimes the bus will leave without you), then try to squish onto a super crowded bus and find a place to lean the stroller so that you have a free hand to hold on to the pole, then try not to be the a-hole that gets muddy stroller wheels in everyone’s way – it’s all just too much “fun” for a daily commute, so I quickly opted for “baby wearing”.

I have found websites devoted to the benefits of “baby wearing”.  They mention all sorts of wonderful things about babies in carriers having better physical, mental and emotional development and that they cry less at night if they rode in carriers during the day.  Some keep it simple, saying that it just makes life easier where some go as far as to make you feel like a horrible parent if you dare use one of those evil satanic strollers that children have been suffering through for far too long.  I didn't see any mention of the most obvious benefit :  that you won’t accidentally leave your kid somewhere if they’re strapped to your body.

In any event, I started out with the bjorn, which seems to be the standard in the baby-wearing world.  You’ve all seen them, they are probably the most popular of the bunch.  They really work great for tiny babies, but once they start to put on the pounds, I’m not sure how to wear one without it causing tremendous pain to my upper back.  Still, when riding the bus or subway, its definitely easier than dealing with the stroller and is therefore really worth the backache. 

While I wish that when I used my bjorn it turned me into a supermodel in a back alley in Europe, I had no such luck.  I still looked like me in my corduroy pants in every shade of brown there is paired with a comfy cardigan over some retro t-shirt I’m probably too old to be wearing.  Ah well….

I started to explore some of the other “baby wearing” options out there – I had seen lots of people walking around the city wearing those fabric baby slings that look so beautiful.  I considered giving them a try,  but I am far too clumsy to think I could ever use one of these properly. 

There’s something that looks like magician’s rings involved, there’s piles of silky stuff that looks like a baby would just slip and slide right through it.  I have no idea how people get their kids wrapped up in those things without a team of experts at home to help them, so I never even attempted one.  They do look lovely, but I’m quite sure that I’m not coordinated enough to pull them off, nor do I have the extra 20 minutes in the morning it looks like these carriers require.  So, they were a no go for me.

So, back to my quest for the perfect baby carrier -- After trying out a couple of options at a local baby store, my carrier of choice became the scoot-a-baby.  It balances the weight between your hips and your shoulder, and the baby sits on the side of your body where they would naturally fit on your hip.  Having the weight of my child rest on my ample hips seems to work out best for me. 

I can’t claim to enjoy it quite as much as this woman, but it would appear that she seems really really pleased with hers as well.  Not sure what’s going on there, but it looks like a party.  I’ve never had quite that much fun carrying either one of my kids around in one of these, so we might be doing something wrong.

I also found something online called the Belle baby carrier, which claims to be like a Bjorn without the backache. 

Although, if you are carrying your baby around between study hall and cheering practice, which it looks like this girl might be doing, I can’t imagine you have too many aches and pains yet anyway. What is she, 15?  That well-placed 2010 top choice award insert even makes it look at first glance like she's carrying a volleyball.  Yes, she's carrying her baby around on the way to volleyball practice.  There's no way her back hurts.




This is something called the Mamas and Papas Morph Pod.

The description says parents can “share the load” and switch the baby from one parent to the other, while both parents wear their harnesses.  I’m trying to think of a situation where this would ever be necessary.  Both parents walk around with the ridiculous harness on, taking turns handing the baby back and forth in the pod like some weird infant volley session?   You take her, no YOU take her! It would be fun to buy a couple of these and everybody in the room gets a turn, passing babies all around in an endless game of baby-hot-potato.  Think of the possibilities.

And then I found this thing…the Metro-Carrier.  The description on this one says it’s “streamlined styling for savvy urbanites on the get up & go”. 

To me it looks like a backpack that you zip your baby into.  I don’t see anywhere that the baby goes on this thing, unless you are just supposed to zip your baby up inside of it, which I guess really is pretty streamlined.  Although, at $180 you might as well just save some money and put your baby into an actual backpack or duffle bag for a lot less money.

Then of course there are the mountain climbing baby carriers (for all those folks out there that take their babies mountain climbing) – Sure, that seems like a fun and safe past-time, and exactly what I myself was itching to do the moment I had children.  As soon as I brought each baby home from the hospital, I really wanted to strap them into a giant contraption on my back and go climb a mountain.  (Who ARE these people?) –

 I saw a guy on my bus one day carrying his daughter in one of those.  First of all, I've lived in apartments smaller than these things --  if I ever tried to carry either of my kids in one of these, I’d probably knock them unconscious every time I went through a doorway, entered an elevator or boarded the bus.  But, this guy seemed to know just when and how to duck without cracking his daughter's head on anything.  Good for him (he climbs mountains after all…with BABIES after all, so clearly he’s much more coordinated than I am).  I have to mention, since I brought him up, that this was the same dad that gave me some sage advice when I told Lily to stop playing with the wheels on her stroller (yes, this was a day that I brought the stroller on the bus, so of course I was already in a bad mood) – He told me that I should let her play with them because our ancestors thought it wise for children to eat dirt and the added boost to her immune system would keep her good and healthy.  I don’t know what neighborhood he lives in, but in MY neighborhood of 1000 dogs, we roll over a lot more than just dirt. Anyway, I thanked him for the advice, told Lily once again to STOP playing with the wheels of the stroller and got off the bus --  I suppose he was heading straight from 2^nd avenue to the nearest mountain range to feed his kid some of that immune system boosting dirt, and good for them.    

Can’t We Shaaaaaare the Pole?

Chapter 9 -- 

When Lily first noticed that other people on the bus hold on to the pole, she wanted to do the same.  I will admit that I was an extremely paranoid mother, more so with Lily as she was my first.  You can tell from earlier posts how much I LOATHED strangers touching her and sharing any number of germs with her.  So I was equally unenthused by her love of the silver poles, those tall shiny buffets of germs just waiting for unsuspecting little hands.  Ugghh!! – Not only did she love holding onto the pole, she needed to have her hands on it at all costs, even if we weren’t anywhere near one.  There is a bar that runs along the ceiling that you can reach from just about anywhere, and some buses still have the ”straps” that hang down, but the poles…no, you have to be in certain spots to reach the poles.  So, first came the fidgeting and fussing if we were not close enough to reach the pole, and we’d have to try to inch our way over to one (very difficult on a crowded bus at rush hour) – Then, once we got close enough for her to grab one she became very possessive of it.  Her limited vocabulary at the time included the word “MINE!” (as most babies’ do), and whenever someone else would hold on to a pole that she believed to be hers and hers alone, she would scream, “Mine!!”.  Most people found this either cute, or annoying, or just ignored it.  It didn’t really evoke that much of a reaction to be honest, usually just a polite smile, maybe a tiny laugh if the person was feeling friendly or an eye roll with a sigh on the side if they didn’t find Lily’s theatrics all that charming.  But there was one woman who wanted to engage in conversation with Lily, in the very annoying high-pitched, sing-songy voice that people reserve for babies (how annoying this must be for babies everywhere), “Can’t we shaaaare the pole?”, to which Lily said, “Mine!”. “Do you know that these poles are for aaaaall the people on the bus?” “Mine!” – and back and forth it went.  Super.  I’m not sure if this woman thought that maybe if she kept it up, she’d teach Lily a new word or get her to grasp the concept of sharing?  I have no idea what she thought, but after a super-annoying five minutes or so, she FINALLY got frustrated, gave up, turned to the person on the other side of her and said, “Well!!  I’ve never been told off by a one year old before!!”   Well, I suppose that’s what you deserve for trying to reason with a one-year old who has the misguided idea that she actually owns the poles on the bus….  And if she thought that simply yelling “mine” was Lily’s attempt to “tell her off”, she should spend 2 minutes with her now.

Keep it movin', Sweetie...

Chapter 8 – “Keep it movin’, Sweetie”

Something funny that happens on occasion is when I’m talking to my kids and I’m standing next to or behind someone who doesn’t see my kids and they think I’m talking to them.  For example, when the bus pulls up, and Lily is reluctant to step forward and I say, “Come on, let’s move!”, sometimes the person in front of me will turn around, ready to protest what they think is a comment to them, only to see that I’m talking to my children.  I’ll admit that I now do this on purpose sometimes, directing an occasional comment towards my daughter, hoping the person in front of me will think I’m talking to them.  Yes, it’s passive/aggressive, so sue me, I do what I can to co-exist with these idiots.  

Like last week when this guy bought his ticket at the little machine at the bus stop and then just turned around to face the street without moving to the side, still standing RIGHT in front of the machine so no one else could get to it.  Apparently since his ticket has been purchased, he felt no one else needed access to the machine.  On top of that, he was wearing a giant George Costanza Gore-tex coat, so I couldn’t get around him if I tried.  So, I said, “Other people need to get to that machine, baby doll” and when he turned around ready to confront his accuser, I quickly looked down at Lily as if I was gently scolding her for standing between me and the machine. 

And another time:  There’s a sassy old lady that I see pretty regularly in the mornings.  She wears a black fur coat, loads of bright red lipstick and her hair is insane.  Since she is not actually Cruella De Ville, I want to tell her that that look isn’t really working for her .  Sometimes when the bus pulls up, she pushes ahead to be the first to board, but then just stands there.  I don’t get it.  I guess she needs to be the first one on, but then wants to make a big show of taking her time.  Or maybe she wants to make one last scan of the street to see if there are a few puppies she can make a coat out of, I don’t know….  Anyway, one day I got right behind her and when the door opened and she just stood there I said “Keep it movin’, Sweetie” then when she turned around, appalled that someone would actually speak to her in such fashion, I said it again but this time clearly directing it at Lily.  Watching her puffed up angry reaction was fun and I’m looking forward to trying it again the next time I see her.  I just have to come up with a way to justify why I’d be telling Lily that she looks like a Disney villain.

Oh...you mean 18 months???

Chapter 7 – Oh...you mean 18 months???

I don’t really like math all that much, nor do I think any random strangers really need to know the EXACT age of my kids, so when someone on the bus asks me how old my kids are (and people do like to ask that a lot) – I usually just estimate.  But when I’ve said, for example: “She’s a year and a half old”, more than once I’ve had people then try to guess her birthdate.  (I guess I’m supposed to be impressed with your quick-thinking math skills?  Your impressive ability to count backwards?  Are you that bored?  Can’t you get a suduko puzzle book or something like everyone else instead of trying to show off and make me look dumb in the process??)    “Oh, so she was born last September???”, and I say , “No, late November actually”.  Then I sound like a moron for either not being able to handle simple math, or not knowing quite how old my child is. 

There’s this other thing that some new parents do where they tell you their kid's age in months.  I’m not really into that (again, I’m on this bus to get to work, not to do math problems).  That makes sense when your child is a baby, but once they turn a year old, I think I'm allowed to give an estimate, right??  One morning Lily and I were sitting across from another lady with a kid.  He was a little boy, looked to be about the same age as Lily, and the Mom and I started talking.  She asked how old Lily was, and I said,  “She’s a year and a half ” and this lady says to me “Oh, you mean 18 months?”.   No, I really didn’t mean 18 months, because she wasn’t EXACTLY a year and a half.  (And why was she correcting my answer anyway??)  Honestly, she was probably closer to a year and ¾, but who says that?  One of these days I’m going to better prepare myself and really show off what a great mother I am by answering in weeks, or better yet, in days.  Stranger: “How old is your daughter?”   Me: “Oh, she’s 1,161 days ….” Or perhaps I’ll answer in fractions.  “Yes, my daughter is 3 and 13/73rds”.   Check me out, I’m good at math AND I love my kid.  Can’t wait for someone to ask me again…