My daughter is having a baby. It’s her second, but her first is almost 12. Even in that time things have changed. The whole thing is a completely different experience than it was when I had my kids.

I went to Babies backward R Us with her and the equipment is mostly totally different. Strollers have become “travel systems” and they are. I just know I’m not going to be able to figure theirs out when they get it. Even the little infant seats for around the house are constructed completely differently. We didn’t get as far as the car seats, although I believe that the infant-size seat comes as part of the travel system. When she was a baby car seats were those little chair-like things that have since been found to be more dangerous than nothing at all. We only used them from the time the baby could sit up until about age two anyway. After that, they learned to wriggle out of them and they simply roamed free around the car. Seat belts? Most of the cars didn’t have them. We mostly felt if we arrived at our destination with the kids inside the car, we were doing our job.

There were no playpens to be seen. Instead they have “play yards” which can also serve as portable cribs or bassinets. They look very useful. They’re not as roomy as playpens, but I never knew any babies who didn’t immediately begin howling once they were placed in a playpen, at least once they were old enough to move around on their own.

They started changing recommendations about introducing foods between the births of my two kids, who were also far apart. When my daughter was born, you gave them a tiny amount of rice cereal as soon as they seemed dissatified with their all liquid diet. With my daughter, that was almost immediately. By the time my son was born it was three months or something like that and when my granddaughter came along it was more like six. Now I assume that they expect the kid to nurse until puberty. You have to ignore some things.

Even the ailments accompanying pregnancy are different. As of today she’s come down with a sudden and very painful case of carpal tunnel syndrome. That’s not good, because she’s working as a freelance grahic designer and carpal tunnel could really cramp her style, so to speak. She looked it up and it turns out it’s a common condition of pregnancy now. She’s in her sixth month and that’s when it most commonly starts. When I was pregnant no one had heard of carpal tunnel. We had to make do with swollen ankles.

They know so much more about what’s going on with the baby than they used to. We know exactly how much the baby weighs, that he’s a boy and expect to get his projected SAT scores from next month’s tests. I hope they’re good. Otherwise he’ll have to attend remedial Mommy and Me classes.