Signs of singletons

No, I didn't take this picture. Are you crazy?

Two earnest young mums huddle over a table in the coffee shop this cold January morning. One, young and brown-haired, is carefully cuddling and nursing her tiny child, leaning forward to listen to her companion, a tall lady with a long blond ponytail, juggling her child, who, given what I remember about child development, is somewhere between eight and eleven months old.

Clearly, both have just the one child.

How can I tell? Something in their posture, in the intent focussing of their attentions on the babies. Also the fact that they're sitting in a coffee shop.

Some time later, I make my way down the hall to use the tiny loo. Blond Ponytail is crouched in one of the two stalls. Her baby is balanced on the adult seat, and BPM is reading from a pile of picture books, while the little girl-child makes noises of the kind a baby makes in the months before words come.

I've heard something of this phenomenon. It's called something like "elimination communication", because young parents simply don't have enough to worry about. With this method, you prove how much at one with your kid you are, by carefully watching your baby for signs that s/he might be ready to pass something, then popping them on the adult toilet until whatever it is emerges. This way, you not only wipe out the need for diapers, but you also get yet another opportunity to bond.

Blond Ponytail Mum bonded with her preverbal daughter, all during the time I used the free cubicle, and for some time after that. Luckily for her, it seems that no more than one woman at a time needed the facilities during that period. Definitely the mother of one. Imagine a mother of two or more believing this was necessary for her baby, much less leaving the other(s) unattended for the amount of time each toileting takes.

Mind you, BPM is probably waaaaay too environmentally conscious to have more than one child.

(For the record, I used cloth diapers, but would probably be condemned for my water wastage.)