Babies: From the bush to boats

I had an exciting day today. I went to see a movie I have been wanting to see called, "Everybody loves...Babies."  I was updating Lauren's baby book this week, when I noticed that she has not been to her first movie in a theatre. So this day was exciting for two reasons: One, I have only seen the inside of a movie theatre two times including today since Lauren was born, and Two, I got to experience a "first" with Lauren!

If you haven't heard about it, the film makers followed four babies from birth to their first steps, in four different countries: Namibia, Mongolia, Japan and the U.S (in San Franciso).  I was so intrigued when I heard about this documentary. I know what raising an infant is like in America. But what in the world is it like in the dessert in Africa?

Lauren, Olivia and the neighbor girl Liberty and I trekked to the Keystone Arts Cinema to see the show. (Um, yeah, three kids and me in a theatre - you read that right. But we survived! Sissy sat on my lap and munched on her apple puffs like a big girl!) WHAT an eye opener this movie was.  You wouldn't even believe some of the ways people raise their babies unless you see it with your own eyes. The film, for me, showed many similarities, but also VAST differences from how we do it here in the states.

All of the mothers nursed their babies, and most of them longer than what is customary here. But that is about where the similarities ended, for me. Let me just say that I felt like we lived in an absolute PALACE when I saw how the families lived. I felt like my house was cleaner than it had ever looked. And little did I know that I am raising a Princess. I know everyone says that about their daughters HERE, in America, but after you see this movie, you will literally feel like your child is royalty, due to the amenities, resources, and just sheer amount of CRAP that our kids have that other kids don't have.

Of course, I'm not saying that how we do it is best or better, it's just what's normal to us. And those babies and mamas don't know what they're missin', so I'm sure they feel like princes and princesses, too. (I wanted to scrub half of those babies in a vat of hot water for a WEEK. Oh God, I can't get those naked, dirty little babies out of my head! I don't think it would be a real good situation for me, to be one of the African moms, raising my baby in the dirt outside of my hut, with my OCD. In fact, I don't know how I would have ever found myself a proper bushman to make a baby with - I'd probably be sweeping outside of my hut from sun up to sun down!)

This movie came at the perfect time for me. I visited a friend last night, who happens to live on the Geist reservoir in a MANSION. With boats, and a view of the lake, and did I say, a mansion. I came home from her house to my house on Grabill Drive, and I wanted to take kerosene, a pile of matches and burn it to the ground. I'm pretty sure the crown molding and fixtures in one of her bathrooms cost more than any little old thing in my whole house! I was lower than a snake in a wagon rut. But you know what? That is her journey. And this is my journey. And that mama in her hut in Namibia with her naked little bush baby? That is her journey.  All different, all our own, and yet somehow all the same. ♥ V :)