Mama in the City

It was a cool day last March and Josie was just 8 weeks old and we were in a rush to get her passport done for an upcoming trip to the US. I was lucky because Ben had daycare that day so I only had the baby to take care of. We walked in the blustery wind and slanting raindrops through the city and to the passport office.

We got in the long winding line with a mass of other people and I kept telling myself that my baby would sleep and not be overly fussy or need to cluster feed. The room was packed and people were either grumpy, impatient or overly chatty and everyone was definitely damp from the rain outside. I kept eyeing my sleeping baby in her bassinet and kept on checking my ticket number against the number counter on the wall waiting for it to match up; it was at least a 2 hour wait and every minute felt heavy and long.

That's when I saw another mom with her older baby just across the way from us. She slipped him out of her carrier and he stood on the ground squawking for something. She rummaged through her big purse and pulled out a pouch of baby food with a little spout and the baby clapped with happiness. Then she proceeded to squirt it into his mouth like a tube of toothpaste. He looked like a little baby bird suckling on that tiny spout and it was this exact moment that I caught myself ever so slightly judging the mother. Oh, I would never use such prepackaged food for my baby. I'd have brought proper containers of food and spoons to feed my baby with. Seriously, what a fool I was.

It turns out those little squeezy pouches of baby food are actually pretty awesome and I really hate that I judged the other mother for something so ridiculous as her giving her child nutrition. In fact, this other mom was totally on to something and very smart for bringing a portable snack into the boring passport office.

Sometimes I will buy a few of the Buddy Fruits pouches and stash them in my purse for moments when we are short on time or when we're out and about and Josie wants needs a snack pronto. I don't need to worry about having a spoon around or having to put that sticky spoon back into my purse. This is really pure convenience that works out really well. For the most part we are making Josie's food from scratch and she is also eating what we eat, but these are really great to fill in the gaps when the girl needs a snack.



(I feel like I need to add that the US trip NEVER even happened despite getting the passport done because my husband had a major work deadline pop up. However, we are hoping to use her passport very soon for a sun filled family vacation!)