Sha La La La La!

Woman 3/24

Parents generally dress their young children in bright colors and all sorts of cute clothing. So, it’s not really interesting to document toddlers or kids since in their own colorful way they all dress the same.

In NYC, the strollers are either McClaren, Bugaboo or for the even more discerning Phil & Teds. Every so often, you get a Baby Bjorn. If you wander or pass the more Chinese areas, you get the grandmas who use makeshift wraps to bundle the baby to their backs. What you don’t see very often is a baby in a sling.

It was a fleece sling. Red fleece strapped from the left shoulder and around her right waist. You could just make out a small head resting on her left breast and her right hand was gentling patting the baby’s butt. You could also see that the baby was wrapped in a banana yellow waffle blanket. On the baby’s head was a white cotton beanie with an illustrated animals print.

Given the size of the sling and the small size of the head. The baby couldn’t have been more than 8 – 12 weeks old, if at that.

The mom herself was wearing in a green knit hat. Chunky wool with a short visor. Her winter coat was a long black down jacket with a purple lining and a detachable hood. With the baby across her body, and the jacket zipped up, there wasn’t much else to observe of her upper half.

Underneath her winter clothing, she was dressed for comfort. Light grey sweat pants that featured a two-colored triple stripe of navy and white running down the side. A bleach spot on the bottom of the outside of her left leg cuff was also quite prominent. The shoes were Asics sneakers. Blue and gold logo stripes. Basic, functional and comfortable.

She had with her this large blue tote bag. The logo on the bag? NCURA which stands for National Council of University Research Administrators. The seal said “50th Anniversary Meeting. Celebrating the Science. Supporting the Scientist.”

In that tote bag, she pulled out a green polka-dot purse, apparently to reach the banana wedged underneath inside the tote. And with the purse safely back in the tote, she proceed to peel and eat the banana.