for you tread on my carpet

Whilst the NCT antenatal classes were lightly speckled with fairy magic nonsense and tended lightly towards what can be implied by (whilst denigrating no individual term) organic natural nurturing basketweaving sandal-wearing bearded barefootism, at no point were any shoes removed nor asked to be removed during the classes. Nicky wanted to pop to a baby-related thing today at which we were requested to remove our shoes upon entry, though it might just have been because there was a new carpet in the building. I was mildly surprised when someone who was obviously on go-and-harrass-people-who-have-just-arrived-and-forcibly-interact-with-them duty asked the wingpiglet's gender after squatting down in the discreet corner we found to hide in next to the only person we knew. It only later occurred to me that the people who might be offended by that sort of thing would possibly be more offended if their little baby girl was assumed to be male rather than the other way round. Nicky said that people apparently check all the time when she's out and about with him during the week (EDIT: though apparently only when he's wearing gender-neutral as-yet-non-prejudicing green or yellow). If I'd planned ahead I'd have brought along the stretchy sling/wrap thing in order to find someone with more experience of them to help and translate the instructions found on the internet (all this 'clingy but not tight' stuff, demonstrated by the wearers popping their thumbs underneath the fabric and pulling it out (but this demonstrates nothing as it's still possible to tug the fabric out when it's probably far too tight with sufficient effort)) but had instead just opted to carry him about by hand which certainly makes transferral of him between us much simpler and allows him to be moved about to let the sweaty patches he generates dry out a bit. There wasn't a great deal going on at this thing so we left and went for a walk, a coffee, a pop to the bicycle-shop for replacement padded glubs and padded undershorts, a sit watching some people pretending to pretend to swordfight on Bruntsfield Links, another wander then a trundle home. Throughout almost all of this wingpiglet was almost entirely sleepily silent and only started wriggling and griping later on just as we sat down to attempt to exhibit him via Skype to my parents in the evening.