December 12, 2008
Flexing My Options
(Note: I’m posting this on behalf of a friend who – in her own words – is too lazy to sign up for WordPress. She’s a former automotive journalist, which explains her uncanny attention to vehicular details.)
The mission: to attend the wedding of a beloved cousin. I love to go to weddings. The dressing up. The formality. The idealism. The problem: The wedding was in Tucson, about 500 miles away. And, for the first time, we had a baby in tow. It was four-month-old Precious’ first road trip, and it was looking to be a doozy. I quaked at the thought of endless hours in the desert with a wailing child, unable to soothe or console her. I suddenly had much more empathy for the Israelites. But it was slightly less offensive than stopping multiple times at truck stops along the way, to breastfeed her in front of leering drivers, where the filth level of the bathroom floors was matched only by my husband’s mouth when he was hanging Christmas lights outside our house.
Turns out, I needn’t have worried, thanks in part to our ride across the vast wasteland, the Ford Flex. The car, and its myriad features, is a breastfeeding mother’s dream. When my boobs did their thrice daily milk letdown, I plugged in the breast pump into the 115-volt outlet and collected milk (the privacy glass and the front passenger afforded me a modicum of modesty). I stored the milk in the handy refrigerator compartment in between the two captain’s chairs in the second row. When the baby got hungry I plugged in the bottle warmer in the aforementioned plug and had a toasty snack for her. The cargo space was big enough to accommodate our gigantic stroller and wedding accoutrements, as we didn’t need to use the third row seats. And the second row seats were some of the most comfortable I’ve experienced, with copious knee space and seat heaters; and thanks to a flat-fold front passenger seat, you can stretch out your legs, recline the seatback and stretch out your weary limbs.
Thanks to the ability to have a meal for her whenever she started to fuss, Precious miraculously snoozed most of the eight-hour ride home. At other points she sang along with Mommy to Sinatra or stared out the numerous rooftop windows, pondering upon the state of the world. It used to be that road trips were more fun and comfortable before kids had to be strapped in to the secure, vise-like grip of safety seats. You could move around a bit, climb into the front seat with Mom and Dad, ride in the rear cargo area and wave to other motorists. A mother could feed or soothe her baby by cuddling or breastfeeding her. Sure, things are a lot safer now, but denied the ability to stretch their limbs a bit in the car, it’s no wonder that kids demand mindless manufactured entertainment in the form of a DVD system in the vehicle, instead of looking out the window at the landscape.
