Things You Can Learn from YouTube

A couple of months ago DOB determined that his ankles had reached the point that riding an exercise bike was no longer possible. This meant it was time to bite the bullet and get a gym membership so he could swim. (Without some form of aerobic exercise his general health deteriorates very quickly.)

There was one problem with this: He didn't know how to swim. In fact, up until a few years ago, he didn't even have enough non-bone-mass in his body to float. Several years of diligent feeding on my part have helped him somewhat, but it's still not easy. And the gym doesn't offer lessons.

This, of course, is no barrier to DOB if he has it in mind to do something. We hunted up some YouTube videos and a Dorling Kindersley book. (You can find those on any topic.) The YouTube videos were not entirely clear, though--one had good photo quality but all the instructions were in Japanese, another one was evidently done in someone's backyard by a bunch of junior highers. And books don't make motion clear.

The library has some videos of a college swim coach giving instructions; the video quality is terrible but the swimming instruction is pretty clear. So with these and a lot of experimentation, he is finally able to move forward. Literally.

I've been trying to figure out something from online videos, too: how to wear a baby on my back. There's usually a couple of fifteen-minute segments in a day where one baby is happy sleeping, playing on the floor, or being held by someone else, but the other baby is antsy though not currently in need of food. If I can get them up on my back quickly, I can use those fifteen minutes to make some serious progress in the dishes/meals/laundry departments.

After not making progress for some time, I asked for a demonstration from the Nigerian lady at church. She grabbed the handiest baby and a blanket off the nursery floor and had him on her back in no time, the blanket tucked in casually in front. "Now you're ready to go search for water!" she said. (Actually she now works to dig wells so that Nigerian women don't have to walk miles to search for water.) I could see that my problem was not so much a lack of theoretical knowledge or proper materials as a lack of having done this regularly since the age of ten.

But with a little practice and finally finding a video of a method that seems to be within my mechanical abilities, I'm finally making it work.

And the ducklings should not have any difficulty when they have kids. They already have it down with any handy blanket:

Updated to add: I hope an old post is OK to enter the Adventures in Babywearing drawing for the Noony & Boo sling. This picture is just too perfect!