We never got around to putting away my son's jumparoo. It sits in our bedroom, unused for about 2 years, and Shea enjoys playing with the bells and whistles now and again.
The jumparoo has become Shea's symbolic connection to the new baby. It's hard to know how much he really grasps about his brother or sister coming. He knows that there's a baby in mommy's tummy and that he was once a baby in mommy's tummy. He's felt the bean move and asked if that was because the baby was ready to come out.
But his most concrete discernment of the baby on the way is that someday the baby will be ready to use the jumparoo and he, Shea, is going to help the baby do so. He talks about this a lot, and whenever the baby is mentioned, this is often his frame of reference, "New baby will go in jumparoo and I am going to help baby in jmparoo."
As I consider our broken-hearted, possibly club-footed little one, I sadly wonder when, or if, he or she will be ready to jumparoo. It hit home that this baby will be very different than our first, who was holding his head up on day one, jumparoo-ing so early we had to prop up the seat with a towel and put pillows under his feet, and army crawling all over the house long before we were ready to babyproof.
As I read other heart mom's blogs and their struggle just to get their babies to have enough energy to eat, my heart breaks a little. Even knowing the bean will ultimately be fine and that by the time he or she is a year old, will no doubt be running around and causing as much trouble as his or her older brother.
Hoping Shea has the chance to teach the bean how to jumparoo. Can't wait to take that video...
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