Bye bye Lake MOBY-gone, Hello Ergo-centric!

What is the most challenging part of parenthood, you say? That's easy...it's not the midnight cries, the various shades of poo, or the baby food flung across vast distances (usually landing upon mom's hair, where it lurks for awhile before migrating to the nether regions of mom's pants). Those challenges pale in comparison to the greatest parenting hurdle of all: BABY GEAR. Because what no one tells you when you're gleefully tearing apart gifts at your baby shower is that most baby gear requires assembly skills that can only be gained by completing a PhD in origami.

Let's take the moby wrap, for example. This trendy item consists of one very very very (infinity) long piece of cloth. The length of this cloth is on par with one of my blog entries. Yeah, it's THAT long. And the only item on this epic length fabric that provides ANY sort of direction to a new and confused parent is an indescribably small tag that says, and I quote, "Moby". If you translate the word "Moby" from motherese, what it really says is "HA! Good luck asswipe! Wish you got a bit more sleep, don't you? Bet you wish your baby wasn't crying right now either, huh???"...in so many words.

Rob and I attempted to use the Moby wrap numerous times. When it didn't end in a near death suffocation incident for everyone involved (including the cat), it led to many tears (also from the cat). Because in order to correctly wear the infamous "MOBY", one must attain the perfect balance of cloth on shoulder and cloth around waist, and then somehow live to tie the remaining cloth in a knot. Oh yes, and then as an afterthought, one must put the baby INTO the resulting "wrap". This is actually easier to do with a cat than a child, at least if your child's name rhymes with Schmelliot. But Alas, even if one DOES manage to assemble this arcane torture device and then cram their baby into it as if they are a glob of turkey stuffing, there are still challenges ahead. Because there is no warning on that nice succinct little tag to tell you that YOU AND YOUR BABY WILL BOTH SWEAT UNTIL YOU ARE SOAKED AND DANGEROUSLY DEHYDRATED.

See picture of one of our few successful MOBY attempts. Notice the rings under both of our eyes. Those are not from sleep deprivation, but from MOBY trauma.

Needless to say, we no longer use the Moby wrap. In fact, for months I used NOTHING to carry my child except for...wait for it...MY ARMS! It was incredibly liberating. But then we stumbled upon (and by stumble upon I mean we put it on our amazon wish list for Christmas) this marvelous invention called the Ergo. Like the Moby, the Ergo is also made of cloth. But the similarities end there. Because when a less-new but still confused parent looks at the directions for the ERgo and tries to mimic the 80's hair mom featured in the pictures, she actually achieves this goal within minutes. Aforementioned hypothetical mom then swells with pride and gains enough energy to insert fussy and squirmy child into ergo, much like the 80's hair child featured in the pictures. It's an amazing invention. And Ergo Inc., I will gladly become your next spokesperson. And so will the cat.