2012 International Babywearing Conference

The fourth-ever International Babywearing Conference was held last weekend at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. We all went--stayed at a Marriot at Metro Center and took the subway everywhere. I went with Samantha to two days of sessions, Saturday and Sunday; got to meet lots of wonderful online friends; and taught a class on tandem wearing Saturday at 1:30 that had about forty adults there (plus, of course, babies and kids of various sizes). Meanwhile, Robert and Marcus went to the Air and Space Museum and the Natural History Museum and the Museum of the American Indian, we all looked at the various monuments, and we ate some good food as well. Highlights of the weekend follow.

National Air and Space Museum (basically a big tie-in to our favorite book, Moonshot)

Natural History Museum (with the feeding of a tarantula)

Monuments/Mall (very hot, but with sprinklers and Marcus's best friend for the evening, Josh, and a crazy amount of construction; sidenote: Robert tried to tell Marcus that these are very special buildings, very important, and Marcus interrupted him and pointed at a crane, and started a long instructive story about how this was a very special, very important crane)

Tandem Wearing Class (I look odd here, and managed to be awkward getting Marcus up and down, but Samantha slept through the entire thing--even when she decided she wanted to nurse!)

Emergency Babywearing Class (very cool--we learned how to use tee shirts, scarves, belts, sheets, towels, and dress shirts as carriers in case of need)

Free-Form Wrapping Class (again, very cool, though my "free-form" wrap job looks suspiciously like, um, just a bad wrap job)

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Ergonomics of Babywearing Class (taught by a physical therapist, about how the infant spine and hips form and how we can use babywearing to support them)

December 2011 Mamas Meet-Up (our babies were all due around the same time and ended up being just ten days apart; we'd been chatting since last March/April, so it was fun to finally meet in person)

Rita's Frozen Custard (our favorite Philly treat--down here, too!)

Five Guys Burgers and Fries (with a fabulous soda machine that let us customize a raspberry-lime Coke)

Chinatown Dinners (first take-out from Chinatown Express for their dumplings, though obviously the noodles look great too, and then all-you-can-eat Mongolian BBQ at Tony Cheng's, where Samantha started really eating for the first time--broccoli, yum!)