Practical & Conscientious Parenting
Archive for February, 2010
Baby Telekinesis
I’ve always harbored the feeling that if I really concentrate, focus and practice, that I could move things with my mind. Ever since I was young. It’s something that I know is a little silly, but part of me always holds out for it. And when I hear that yogis can do it, my western science mind gives in just a little bit.
But as a father, I’m observing and learning all the time. Someone told me once that our kids are our best teachers, and I wouldn’t argue yet. While I was watching Edie play at the table the other day, gradually dropping every toy to the floor, it hit me: this is where my belief in telekinesis comes from. All Edie has to do is want something, reach towards it, and possibly make a little noise, and – VOOM! – it’s in her hands. I’m slowly training her to believe on a visceral level in telekinesis. And I still can’t shake the feeling that maybe it’ll work for me, too.
Metoo Highchair
Edie sitting in her Metoo highchair
We recently received our Metoo highchair from phil&teds. It clamps easily onto our table, and feels really secure. It’s really light-weight and folds up small and flat. It comes with straps to go over little shoulders, we haven’t used them since trying them out. I think they may come in handy when Edie could potentially crawl out (and some of her back-bending of late makes me think that I should try them again). For now, they don’t really get in the way, but it would be nice to be able to detach them.
We’ve taken it to a few friends houses, and a few restaurants, with mixed results. Most places it’s worked just fine, but because it clamps directly onto things using a c-clamp, we’ve had to get creative sometimes. Last weekend we were at a forest service cabin with a group of friends, and the table there had a routed edged about 2″ wide that sloped down from table top. The top of the c-clamp is flat and about 3″, so I thought we were out of luck. But our friend Pete had the genius idea of flipping the clamp over (which I’m sure isn’t recommended by the company). We flipped it over, put down some cloth to protect the table top, and screwed the clamp down extra tight. It worked wonderfully the whole weekend, and Edie had fun playing with the bottom of the clamps!
The only other problem we’ve run into is that it’s not safe on small tables. We took it too a great Mediterranean restaurant here in Yakima, and all of their tables are square café tables that are only about 3 1/2′ wide. I ended up standing on the foot of the table the whole time to make sure that Edie didn’t tip the whole thing over!
We’ve really enjoyed having it at home, because it gets Edie right at the table with us, and it doesn’t take up as much room as a free standing highchair would. And she’s been loving it, too!