Bouncy seat

This weekend we tried to return a bunch of baby stuff to the friends who loaned it to us when Isaac was born, but for various reasons we ended up bringing most of it back home with us. That's why the bouncy seat was out in our family room yesterday.

Isaac was interested in it, especially when we told him he had used it when he was much younger. He likes things from when he was a "little baby," as he puts it, even though I'm sure he doesn't remember them. He visits his disassembled old Jumperoo, which is gathering dust in the master bedroom closet, and he tries to put on the tiny hospital identification bracelet he wore as a newborn.

Eventually he climbed into the chair, although his head didn't fit under the canopy and he had to slouch down in his seat. I turned on the music and "soothing massage" features, and he sat there for a moment, considering. We listened to the quiet grinding of massage gears accompanied by an irritating New Age lullaby.

"Not comfortable," he said, and climbed out of the seat.

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As a infant, Isaac didn't spend a lot of time in the bouncy seat, but I did find it extremely useful. We kept it in the master bathroom, and for his first six months I put him in the seat when I took a shower. I could usually make it through a whole shower before he began to cry, especially when he got old enough to be interested in toys. When he began to sit well on his own, at about seven months old, we stopped using the bouncy seat, so when I showered I put him in his crib in his room, where he was nearly always happy to listen to music and play with toys. We did this for about a year, but for the last two months, since he's been in a toddler bed rather than a crib, I have been giving him a choice: "Do you want to stay in your room and play, or do you want to come with Mama while she takes a shower?" So far he has opted to come with me every single time, and while I shower he sits on the floor of the bathroom and plays. It's like a return to the old bouncy seat days, minus, of course, the seat itself.

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By the way, in the above photo Isaac is two weeks old. He's not doing seated karate -- his legs were still bowed in the fetal position and his arms still floated around randomly. I can't remember when that stopped.