Pack it up, pack it in...

Do you love your baby pack? Your sling, ergo, beco, mei tai, baby hawk, bjorn, or other? Front-carry, back-carry, or hip-carry? Facing in or facing out?

Well, I do. And lucky for me, my baby does, too.

I own a Beco Butterfly II Organic Baby Carrier. Sounds fancy, huh? Sure, it's cute. With its argyle print of little white elk on a black background, it reads "Attachment Parent with a Touch of Preppy." Which admittedly, I kind of love.

But it's really just a souped up version of the homemade pack my mother carried me in over thirty years ago. That's right, baby carriers have been around for a long time--my lifetime, and even longer, if you count the Native Americans with their adorable papooses. Potentially also with some sort of elk adornment.

Anyway, I liked my pack quite a bit when I had my first baby, S. But now, as a mother to two, I love--no, am obsessed with--my pack. I wear it all the time, and it allows me to be hands-free and get something done while caring for a baby and her active older sister. In fact, let me tell you what I did yesterday with little E in the pack:

• made S breakfast
• cleared the dishwasher
• two loads of laundry, careful not to bump baby's head on the front-loading washer
• lifted S into her carseat (not easy to do, as you moms of two know... my forearms are going to be as big as Popeye's!)
• took S to gymnastics class, hefted her up to the uneven bars, using aforementioned huge forearms
• nursed E (this is an advanced maneuver, but E's got skills)
• changed S's diaper*
• read S books before nap and tucked her in, careful not to crash baby into toddler
• walked to Walgreens with S in the stroller
• had a dance party in the kitchen with both girls
• gave S a bath, careful not to soak E
• made dinner (OK, ordered takeout)

*Accidentally dipped the tip of E's night cap into S's poopy diaper. This was not my finest baby-wearing moment.

All in all, it was a pretty productive day, thanks to my pack. Of course, with all the leg splaying E is doing these days, there's a very good chance she's going to walk like a cowboy when she's older. But for now, she's happy. And S is happy. And I'm happy.

I love you, Beco Butterfly II Organic Baby Carrier.