I’m sure many parents have taken the treacherous adventure of shopping with their newborn. Nothing like diving into the unknown with how they will react to new stimuli and what other people are going to say (or do) to you. I definitely remember what it was like with my first born. I also remember what it was like with my second born. Now, I am a grizzled veteran with a third who as about to ask my wife if I could take him to Costco. Alone. Surprisingly, she said yes.

I didn’t exactly know how he would react, but I was a confident parent and elected not to take the diaper bag. It was an hour trip (driving, shopping, checkout, loading the car, and driving back). What’s the worst that could happen? I’m always a perpetual optimist when it comes to outcomes during outings with the kids and if something does go haywire, I will tend to “figure it out” as things happen. I also knew that my third was overall an “easier” newborn than my other two.

I loaded him into the car seat and loaded the car seat into the car. No crying - color me surprised. I drove to Costco and still no crying. Took him inside and shopped. No crying. Checked out. No crying. Loaded the car. You guessed it - no crying. It wasn’t until I lifted the hood on his car seat to make sure he was doing ok that he was wide awake and staring right back at me. That was a huge mistake and he started screaming at the top of his lungs when I put him in the car. That was a loud car ride back, but overall a 9 out of 10 experience for how easy the trip was.

The real reason why this story stood out to me is that while I was at Costco, I got a lot of smiles from other people shopping there. A lot. They couldn’t see my newborn because the hood of the car seat was almost covering the entire view of him, so I knew it wasn’t how cute he was (yes, I have a biased opinion of that!). I was a bit confused why people were smiling and had a few reasons in my head. When I asked my wife what she thought she immediately snapped to one thought - it was because I was a dad with a newborn by myself. People would not smile that much at a mom with a newborn because that is expected. The conversation with my wife was a few days old, but that stuck with me. I guess it was not as common for a dad to be out with a newborn in the wild. Or…

Maybe it was also the relative ease of how those moments in Costco went with a newborn since it was not utter chaos. Maybe it was other parents reminiscing about their own kids when they were newborns. Maybe it was my confidence in whipping the shopping cart around with a newborn and the groceries stacked all around the car seat in an expertly done Tetris simulation (probably not this, but one can hope!). I’ll never know the real reason why so many people were smiling, but I really hope it wasn’t because I was a dad with a newborn that was out solo because everyone should get equal credit for bringing their newborn out by themselves. There are enough smiles to go around after all :)