I am human. -or- Earth Day ate my baby bouncer!

Last Thursday was a hard day of practicing what you preach. My mom had spent the last few days researching jumpers for little guy, as her arms are wearing out from lifting him upright and playing bouncy bounce in her lap all day long. Although I do practice attachment parenting, I also believe in common sense and making your loved ones happy, happy as long as it’s not dangeroso (isn’t that the logic behind AP in the first place?). So I’m totally down with the jumper idea as long as he’s not in it more than a couple 15 minute stretches a day and we actually play with him while he’s bouncing.

This is not the problem, however. Here’s the problem: Having just written a well-researched piece on “The Three R’s” of green living, I was of course beholden to my mantra to avoid buying new wherever possible. This means not rushing off to a big box store every time you have a new idea for a gadget.

“But I want it now!” said my pioneering shopping spirit. Once it gets hold of an idea it is like hell on wheels. But I did try to be good. We first called the local kids’ consignment shop and then took a look on ebay. It’s amazing how folks are bound and determined to get their money back on used items! The thing is $65 new, and ebayers want $35 for it plus $20 shipping. So after all my trouble searching and bidding I save $5-10 to run the risk of getting something damaged and broken! I debated the subject with hubbie:

“Well, the prices don’t save that much money over Target,” I said.

“OK.” He replied patiently, and waited. He knows when I have more to say. He has learned.

“But then there’s the off-gassing,” I continued. “So we wouldn’t save much money, we’d run the risk of getting burned, but we’d help the planet by buying used. And we’d get it sort of ‘off-gassed for free’. I guess that’s one way of looking at it. The off-gassing comes standard with ebay.” I was referring to my concern over buying new plastics. My gut says if it smells bad, it’s bad for you. Turns out that’s true, especially when PVC is concerned. But I digress…

“OK, so… What shall we do?” says DH. Again, the dear hubbie knows. He knows I am using him as a sounding board, and there’s something up.

“Well… the thing is all the bouncers I saw on ebay already had bids on them, so we wouldn’t be saving the landfills, really…” Ah, the shopping demon in me rears its ugly head! It battles with me! It is stronger than I! “How ’bout we just go to Target and check them out?” Clever. The shopping demon is clever!

Next thing you know we’re in the aisle at Target. Ben has taken the big monster jumperoo down from the rack and little wee one is smiling away sitting in his newfound toy in the lovely fluorescent world of his Target playroom for a day. Folks are stopping by and staring; one couple said they came all the way across the store just to get another look at that cute baby they saw in my sling on the way in. “What a cute baby!” they smiled, and talked about expecting. Del was having a blast in the jumperoo and shopping demon was winning. All we had to do now was have a brief conversation about how we should just go ahead and buy it. After all we’re here now and he loves it!

Then… trouble struck. Another very nice passerby and a polite conversation. But this time the words uttered were these: “Yes, my daughter had a great time with her jumperoo, but of course she’s 20 months now so what do I need with it? It’s just sitting in the basement.” Da, da, da, DAH. My husband and I turn to eachother simultaneously as she walks away, each with the same thought.

“Should I ask her if she’d sell it to us?” he quanders.

“Yes,” I say. “I was thinking the same thing but I was too shy.” (Or perhaps the shopping demon held my tongue.)

A moment later he returns with the answer. She’d be happy to sell it to us. It does have a crack in it, and it’s not exactly the model we wanted, but she’d sell it for 35 dollars. They live just across town.

I should have been overjoyed, right? I found almost exactly the toy I wanted for my boy at a $30 savings and I’m meeting my values by buying used to boot. Instead of enthusiasm I stood there like a deer in headlights. I began… browsing.

“So, are we ready to leave?” says dear husband. He patiently follows me.

“Um just a sec,” I reply. I am busy. Looking at vases. Except for the fact that “looking at vases” is not something that I do.

“What do you need right now?” Ben says. He is the greatest husband in the world. I am looking at vases. He knows this means I am in distress.

“Well… I guess I am standing here looking at vases waiting for you to convince me not to buy the new one. After all, she said that hers has a crack, and that seems like a lot to pay for something used and damaged.” I want the new one. I want it now.

“OK,” he pauses. “Well, you did just write that post about reducing your consumption and buying used. What if we just go check it out on Saturday. And then if it’s not in good shape, we can come right here and buy it after that.”

“You’re right.” Why do things always seem more clear when they come out of someone else’s mouth?

I return home dejected. I call and tell my mom that we didn’t buy it, and then she’s dejected too. Why are we acting like such children? Surely there is something to it. It must be chemical. Maybe they spray something in the air in those places, or something shoots out of those dizzying lights. Or perhaps it’s just a yearning for power. The power to acquire. Whatever it was I was showing my humanity and struggling under pressure. I really wanted the cute blue horsey one brand spankin’ shiny new. Yet my values are solidly rooted in moving beyond attachment to material things, and my intellectual goals of reducing consumption for the sake of the earth’s future inhabitants prohibit any such fascination with the shiny and the new.

Does this story have a happy ending? As the next two days ticked by I watched with curiosity as my dreams about blue cuteness faded. Something… changed. It was as if, for those moments immediately before and after our visit to Target, my mind’s eye had created a perfect picture that I believed was tangible. But when I let that picture fade from urgency, I was back in my real life, where everything is not perfect, and yet here I am, feeling what I am feeling, being who I am.

Suddenly I did not need to be the mom in that pretty picture. I didn’t need to be the mom standing next to the baby in the adorable blue horsey jumperoo. I could just be the mom sitting next to the exquisitely happy baby, delightfully bopping up and down in the white, boring, slightly faded, taped-back-together jumperoo. And that’s where I am now. Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping would be proud.

We visited the mom who offered up the used jumperoo on Saturday. We had actually a quite nice visit at their home and got a few tips on garage sale shopping. We thought of negotiating them down 5 dollars or so… after all it was cracked… but we didn’t. And it was good. The conversation went much better after the money was dealt with, and they invited us to their house for game night next Friday.

As I write this little story, I am almost embarrassed. If I were a better earth mama I would not have been so tempted. If I were less crazy and granola I would have just bought the damn thing. If I were richer I would have bought something that was much prettier and all natural through and through. But I am who I am. Just one mama born into a world of too much stuff, and trying to have a good time for myself and my family while fighting my inner demons to “do the right thing.”

I am human. Earth Day ate my blue baby bouncer, but it gave me something better: the ability to become who I want to be.