Sneak peeks from International Babywearing Week video shoot

International Babywearing Week video shoot

Old news: Magic City Slingers is now Babywearing International of  Birmingham. Yes, we need to get around to changing the name of the blog, and our website too. We’re busy.

More old news: Babywearing International, Inc., kicked off International Babywearing Week last year. Groups like ours all over the world got proclamations and had events, and it was just awesome. Check out this roundup of last year’s events. This year’s International Babywearing Week will be September 21-28.

Leo Ticheli with his amazing camera

Now, for the current events: Our friend Heather Ticheli came up with the brilliant idea to make a public service announcement promoting babywearing. Heather does not just come up with stuff, she actually makes it happen. She just so happened to know the perfect TV production firm for this project, as well as the perfect voice over artist. Both donated their services, for which we are abundantly grateful.

Yesterday, a crew of Birmingham area babywearers met with the crew at Leo Ticheli Productions and shot the video. We had twelve local babywearers, each wearing one or two of their children, as models. We have some beautiful babywearers here, and the camera was loving them! We had babies ranging from two weeks to three years, including a set of 9-week-old twins.

LJ and Imani on the set

We were fortunate to have a local makeup artist, Christi Adkins, to help us look our best on camera and also to model herself. Angela Shook was our runner/child wrangler/librarian/person who made it all seem like a cakewalk. Many thanks are due to them, as well as our other models: Dana and Julia Gale; Melissa Abele Hill with Charlotte and Fox; Kate and Aine Hogeland; Kelley Nichols with Rosie and Grady; Sina and Evy Skates; betsy and  Davy Mills; Andi and Evan Lucia; Eric and Sydney Theall; Mandy and Tanner Welch; and LJ and Imani Hayes.

Mandy with 2-week-old Tanner

An amazing voice over artist, Michelle Torres, has already recorded the voice over in English and will also record it in Spanish. Did I mention she is amazing? You’ve heard her voice before, you just don’t know it.

Now, there’s editing to do. The final products will be distributed in a variety of ways. Don’t ask me when and where you can see them, lol! We’ll post them as soon as they are available; we’re nice like that.

A thousand thank you’s to Heather Ticheli for making this project happen and for coordinating it from London. We are endlessly grateful and are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to feed her some Full Moon Barbeque here in her home town of Birmingham.

If I Ran the Zoo

The animals would keep on doing what they’re doing. Here’s a post about how the animals at the Atlanta zoo do a lot of things people are embracing more and more, including babywearing.

“Are your meetings breastfeeding-friendly?”

Often, folks will email us before attending their first meeting, and this question came up recently in one such email. Our meetings are friendly, period. Babies come, and since they require frequent feeding, people feed them. Breast or bottle … we aren’t going to look at you funny either way.

They Blog From a Land Downunder

Blogging here has been light for a few months as I focus on getting the Babywearing International programs running. I am delighted to report, however, that Baby Carriers Downunder are now blogging away, and so far the content is really just fantastic, ranging from toddler wearing to today’s post about babywearing during and after a zombie apocalypse. ‘Cause it’s good to be prepared.

Seriously, get a cup of tea and spend some quality time with our Aussie and Kiwi friends, most of whom are brilliant and some of whom are brilliant AND insane. We’ll pick up the posting here again soon just in case you miss us.

Wrap, but don’t re-wrap!

You’ve gotta see the video in this blog post from former Birmingham slinger Bonnie showing how to tie your wrap then take it off and put it back on without ever untying or re-tying. Honest.

If you make and sell slings, children’s clothing, or crafts for children

… then you’ll want to check out this blog concerning the Consumer Product Safety Commission Improvement Act, how to comply with it, and how to seek changes to make compliance easier (especially if you don’t know what the Consumer Product Safety Commission Improvement Act is and how it will require you to do lead testing on your handmade products).

The Double Hammock

Here’s a video, with French captions, demonstrating the new and wildly popular “double hammock” back carry, for your viewing pleasure. This is a video promoting a stretchy wrap, but this carry is being done by lots of wrappers with wovens, and it’s actually a quick carry notwithstanding the video’s leisurely pace. I tried it today and it was extremely comfortable!

Front Torso Cross Carry

Carli, Lizzy, and Stephanie

You can do a strapless wrap carry on your front as well as your back. The key is having a way to load your baby securely while you wrap … when you do this as back carry, you can bend forward to make your back like a table … obviously, though, bending over backward while you wrap is not the way to a front torso carry. The trick is to start off as if you’re doing the front wrap cross carry, then one by one convert the shoulder straps to torso straps.

Here’s a video showing how to do this carry with a Moby Wrap. The same technique works with woven wraps, too. Enjoy going strapless!

Just for fun

I find this website hilarious. What’s not fun about sweet sling babies suddenly becoming GIANT when you mouse over them? I’m not too sure about the arm pillow that comes with the sling, but hey, I haven’t tried it so I can’t really knock it.

Many thanks to Rebecca in Japan for posting about it on TheBabywearer.com so we could all enjoy bouncing back and forth between the babies.