Ideal Bite

Biter Faye Kommers of Bozeman, MT, is mom to 7-month-old Laila and sent us this story related to today’s Mama Bite tip:

For a summer during college, I moved in with my aunt and uncle about a week after they had their first baby (why they took on an extra boarder during that exhausting time is beyond me!). Although it has been about 15 years since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about those first few months with my cousin Cody because it was the most time I’ve ever spent with a newborn. Now that I am a new mom, there are things from that experience that I don’t remember that I feel certain I should. For example, I don’t ever remember losing sleep or hearing Cody crying in the middle of the night and regrettably, especially when I am so dependent on some of the help I have now, I don’t remember helping out very much. I do remember Cody’s umbilical cord falling off, a steaming bathroom croup incident, a fingernail cutting accident, going to pick up a rented breast pump, and how much Cody liked the high contrast of black and white images.

My aunt and uncle discovered this fascination while they were reading a magazine with Cody in one of their laps. Cody was mesmerized by a full-page Marlboro cigarette ad. The entire ad consisted of a black and white shadowed image of the Marlboro Man’s cowboy hat, head and shoulders. So, they cut out the ad and took a black marker to “black out” the cigarette, as not to give their 2-month-old son any subliminal ideas about how cool and sexy it is to smoke, and stuck it up on the wall by his changing table. Cody was entranced by that thing for months (and I can report that he is currently a happy, healthy, non-smoking teenager).

So I was happy to receive as a baby shower gift some black and white cards with wonderful animal images. They were purchased at The Natural Baby Company and are the Wee Gallery’s Art Cards for Baby. They have about five collections (Original Animals, Farm, Jungle, Garden, and Sea) and are printed with non-toxic ink. We placed them above our daughter Laila’s changing table and they had the absolute same wide-eyed effect as the Marlboro Man did with Cody.

Some time in October, my mom gave me another card about the same size as the animal cards on Laila’s wall. It too was white with a black ink image.  The image was of Barack Obama, a postcard from his campaign materials.  We placed it next to the animal cards and every morning prior to the election when our daughter looked at the cards, we would say “Good Morning Elephant. Good Morning Owl. Good Morning Barack Obama.” 

Thanks, Faye!

-Mama Bite Editor Alison...off to post some pictures too...