:: Bumbo Recall (Or, I Get Snarky) ::

I try not to be too judge-y or too snarky but seriously folks. This is the dumbest thing I've heard in awhile.

When my mom was here a few weeks ago she bought Evan a Bumbo (pictured below). He spends a lot of his free time staring up at the ceiling or sitting on my lap and she thought he might like a change of scenery -- a bit of independence.

The Bumbo packaging warned not to use the Bumbo anywhere but on the floor. It also said not to leave Evan unattended in it (I don't know how they knew my kid's name, but that's another post for another time). So we put the Bumbo on the floor in the living room (our real estate agent calls this the great room) and let him sit in it for a few minutes at a time.



We don't use it when we need to do things like make bottles or pee. We use the good old floor for occasions like that because it would be really hard for Evan to hurt himself just lying still on the floor with no stairs or scissors or handguns nearby -- the kid would have to get very creative and frankly, we want to encourage creativity.

When babysitters come, we either hide the Bumbo or tell the sitters that he's not big enough for it yet.

But then this morning my mom calls all apologetic and all "I'm sorry I bought you a toy that's been recalled and I hope my grandson is okay and doesn't have any skull fractures." Whoa! Skull fractures! From a Bumbo! I guess this is something I need to look into. I'm curious, anyway, how something made of very strange-feeling foam could possibly cause skull fractures.

Turns out it's not the Bumbo. It's the dumbos. The parents who leave Bumbos on high precipices and then exit the room, probably to go smoke crack because come on, you can't smoke crack in front of babies.

I know. Stop being so judge-y. But I can't help it. Because my research into the Bumbo recall of 2007 reveals that the seats themselves haven't been recalled, just the instructions to the seats have been recalled. Apparently the warnings were not strong enough. So now the company has issued new instructions (you can download them here) and nifty new warning stickers.

Really, though, I think we all need to have our brains recalled. Next thing you know there will be nationwide recalls on beds (kids can roll off of them and land on their heads, causing skull fractures), dust (kids can have severe asthma attacks and then fall over, resulting in skull fractures) , even kitchen sink faucets (kids can accidentally get some water in their eyes when the faucets accidentally spray all awry and crazy and then the kids can stumble backwards into the fridge, bumping their heads and causing skull fractures).

Damn. I'm being judge-y again.

*****

P.S. If your child happens to have suffered skull fractures as a result of using the Bumbo, I'm very sorry. Yes, I do understand that sometimes we all do things that in retrospect we wish we hadn't done, and yes I am aware of the fact that I did learn about the seriousness of staying with Evan when he's in the Bumbo when he snapped his head back all weird in it once when I was right there with him. But by no means do I think there's anything wrong with the Bumbo or that anything needs to be recalled because I choose to put my son in a seat that keeps his butt but not his neck upright. And no, you're right, I'm not a perfect mommy and no, actually, I don't think I am, and yes, I'm sure I'll be writing a different post when Evan gets his first skull fracture and yes, I'll call you then so that you can tell me how stupid I am for whatever stupid thing I did that resulted in said skull fracture.