Baby gear we would do differently

When I was pregnant and trying to figure out what baby stuff to get, it felt like the big trend was for people to say, "Only first-time moms buy stuff ahead of time. You don't need anything! Don't waste your money!" And while I appreciate the sentiment behind that (wipe warmer? Not necessary), I didn't find it helpful. Because despite the people chirping, "You don't need a crib! The baby will sleep with you! You don't need a stroller! That's what your arms are for!" I DID want a crib and a stroller. And a swing. And a glider. And a bunch of other stuff. And you know what? When the baby came, I was GLAD I had the stuff.

(The swing, by the way, was the number one thing that people said not to buy ahead of time. The baby might hate it! It costs so much! Just get one later if you need it! But I decided to take the risk on the swing, figuring that even if Callum hated it, the next baby might like it, and if not, since I bought it used on Craigslist, I could probably resell it and make most of my money back. And you know what? Callum DID like the swing, and we used it SO MUCH, and you know what I'm really glad I wasn't doing two days postpartum on one hour of sleep? Rushing out to Target to pay full price for an inferior quality swing because I was desperate.)

Anyway. My point is, I carefully researched baby products and purchased only what I thought we would actually need and use. And we made the executive decision to only buy things that we thought we would need right away. High chair? Bouncy seat? Jumperoo? All things that could (and did) wait. But Callum slept in his crib from his first day home. He napped in his swing. He bathed in his tub. And so on. All that stuff that we bought ahead of time? We used every single item. And I was really glad we had it.

All this is just a really long intro to say, if you're an expecting parent thinking you don't need all that junk? Great. Don't buy it. I'm sure you're right. But if you're thinking you DO need all that junk, and you WOULD like to have it, and now you're wondering if you're just being silly and naive to buy it? I don't think so. I mean, make careful choices, do your research, and only buy what you think will make sense for you, while of course understanding that some things might work better than others for your particular baby. But don't feel like you're being a ridiculous first-timer by getting stuff ahead of time. People's instincts are usually pretty accurate as far as what they think will fit into their lives and what won't be necessary. So if you think something will be useful and you want to have it? Buy it. We did, and I'm so glad.

Now. All that said, there ARE a few things that we learned from experience were not perfectly suited to us. Things that we actually ended up doing changing after a few months of experimenting. This still doesn't mean that the way we originally did things wouldn't work for a lot of people. But the lessons we learned are, I think, worth sharing.

1. Stroller.
We started with the Chicco Cortina stroller, which was purchased in a travel system along with the Chicco Keyfit 30 car seat. The travel system was so steeply discounted that it was almost the same price as the car seat alone. Since car seats should not be purchased used anyway, we were going to have to pay full price for it, so the sale price of the travel system made the stroller nearly free. And we used it for ages. And we liked it a lot. We still do, actually. It has great suspension. The car seat fits into it. It has a regular seat that reclines fully. It has an adjustable handle. It has a giant, accessible storage basket and lots of cup holders. It's awesome.

And it's also HUGE. It fills the entire trunk of our car. Even our SUV. It is FANTASTIC for around the neighborhood, but it is not so great for around town. So then we purchased an umbrella stroller to keep in the trunk (well, we put it on our registry and received it as a gift). It's the First Years Ignite, and I think of it as a compromise stroller. It's lighter and folds down relatively small, but it's still not super tiny and weightless. It has a sunshade, but not a huge one. It has decently high handles but Torsten (at 6'4") still has to bend a bit to push it. It's pretty sturdy but it's not great on dirt trails and hikes. It has a basket, but it's not very accessible. The seat reclines, but not all the way. So, it does a lot and as an umbrella stroller it's great. But we still prefer the Chicco, if only it didn't take up our entire trunk.

Enter the CityMini. We actually decided to get this when we got our SUV, because Montana rides in the back of the SUV, and there wasn't room for both her and the Chicco stroller back there, which meant that the umbrella stroller was our only option, which wasn't very helpful when we wanted to go on a hike. So I did a bunch of research and decided to splash out on a more expensive stroller that does everything at once. It's lightweight. It folds up small (and with one hand). It has big wheels and good suspension. The handle is high. The sunshade is huge. It's incredibly maneuverable. The seat reclines very far. And, for our next kid (since Callum has already outgrown his infant seat, rendering this a moot point for him), we can get a converter that allows us to fit the car seat into it.

Basically, I love this stroller. It is totally worth the money to me to have one stroller that does everything and fits in our car. We leave it in our trunk and we keep the Chicco set up in our garage for neighborhood walks. But it would also be great as a one-and-only stroller, as long as you don't mind taking it in and out of the car. And I think we'll donate our umbrella stroller to a battered women's shelter or something.

2. Dresser.
Sadly, when I was pregnant our Ikea hadn't opened yet. So we selected a simple dresser from Land of Nod, which my parents gave to us as a Christmas gift. We got a (fantastic) non-skid changing pad to put on top of it and ta-da! Changing table. And for a long time it worked great. The changing pad took up nearly the entire dresser, but we squished wipes and lotion on the end of it, and we keep our diapers in a basket next to the dresser anyway, so it was fine. But then Callum got bigger. And squirmier. And suddenly every diaper change involved wrestling toiletries away from him while listening to constant crashes as he knocked whatever he hadn't grabbed on the floor.

Conveniently, our Ikea finally opened at just around that time. So we purchased this dresser. See how long it is? It is GLORIOUS. Callum can kick and roll and grab to his heart's content, and nothing gets knocked over. Plus there's room for everything we want to keep on there, even a lamp! And bonus: more drawers for clothing. So, the old dresser is in the bedroom that currently serves as my office, and will be put back into service once Callum is potty trained and graduates to a big-kid bedroom.

3. Diaper bag.
When I was pregnant, I read a bunch of diaper bag reviews and selected the Skip Hop Duo. A sale and a coupon allowed me to buy it for cheap at Macy's, which is convenient because we don't use it anymore. There isn't really anything wrong with it--though it's a bit narrow, which can make it hard to find things in the main compartment--but it was a pain to carry. It does have nice stroller clips, but when you just want to grab the bag and the baby? It was a little unwieldy. I probably would have stuck with it, but Torsten really hated it. So I bought him an Eddie Bauer backpack-style diaper bag for Father's Day, and now we both always use that one. It's just so nice to be able to put it on your back instead of having it weigh you down on one side and swing around clunkily while you're trying to wrangle a baby. The Skip Hop has been retired (though I did transfer its changing pad into the Eddie Bauer, since I found the Eddie Bauer changing pad inferior). Maybe I'll donate the Skip Hop to a shelter with the stroller, now that I think about it.

4. High chair.
Originally we purchased a Fisher Price high chair/booster seat combo instead of a more traditional seat. And I still think it's a great concept. So cheap! So easy! So compact! Straps right onto your dining room chair! And the reasons that this didn't work out for us are very specific to our particular baby and furniture. We have nice microsuede dining chairs that we did not want the baby eating (and spilling) on. So we put the seat on one of our old wooden Ikea dining chairs that was very compact and lightweight, with straight up and down legs. And our child is very large, and very squirmy. And the combination of these factors meant that Callum would bounce around during meals and rock his chair right off two of its legs in a terrifying manner. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before he managed to tip the chair over entirely and land on his head with a chair and booster seat on top of him. So we splashed out for a more traditional high chair, the Graco Contempo. And it works great. It's comfortable. It's nice. It's easy to clean. And best of all, it's sturdy. Callum can bounce in there with all his might, but that thing is not going anywhere.

So, those are the main things we've learned and changed as we've dealt with a real baby instead of just a theoretical one over the past nine months. (And by the way, Amazon Affiliates isn't allowed in Colorado so I don't benefit from people clicking those links--they're there purely for reference.)

So now it's your turn. What are some things that seemed great at first, but wound up just not working for you and your baby? And what did you end up doing (or what would you do next time) instead?

Nine months

Dear Callum,

Today you are nine months old. That, coupled with the fact that it is nearly November and they are calling for snow this week which means winter is coming, means that I cannot escape the reality that your first birthday is approaching alarmingly fast. At which point you will really be a toddler instead of a baby. Which is only appropriate, really, given that you've been the size of a typical toddler for the past five months or so.


This month has been all about movement with you. You are no longer specifically interested in your jumperoo, and you will only occasionally tolerate being placed in your playpen with several hundred of your very favorite toys. What you want is to be placed on the floor. Anywhere on the floor. In any position. Stomach, back, kneeling, seated, standing (while holding on)--it doesn't matter. As long as you're on the floor, you will eventually get where you want to go. For a child who does not yet employ any of the conventional human methods of locomotion such as walking or crawling, you are surprisingly good at moving, and moving fast. Rolling is still your primary method of transportation--and I hadn't realized how unusual it was until both sets of grandparents arrived in short succession and were blown away watching you fly across the room via rolling, without even bumping your head once--but you also scoot, rotate, flail, squirm, and go on and off your knees in order to get from Point A to Point B. All you want is freedom. And we give it to you as much as we can while still keeping in mind that we have done nothing, literally, not one thing, to babyproof this house and as such we must chase after you with alarming perseverance to prevent you from offing yourself on an electrical outlet, sharp corner, staircase, or other such dangerous object.


We keep thinking that you're going to start crawling any day now. You get on your knees and rock back and forth. Sometimes you crawl backward, but only for a few paces before you wind up in a sitting position. I am fairly certain that you do this on purpose but it drives me nuts because I keep thinking this is it, the hands and knees are moving, he's finally going to crawl, dammit where is the video camera, oh look, there he is sitting on his butt again. You are no longer singularly focused on the knees and sitting thing, though, because this past month you added standing to the mix. You haven't yet pulled to standing on your own (though you regularly pull upright to your knees, just not your feet) but you will lock your legs when we try to sit you down so that you wind up in a standing position, and you will happily stand and hold on with one hand indefinitely.


You display zero interest in walking or letting go while standing, and sometimes you will cautiously try to bend down to pick up a toy from the floor, but you absolutely will not bend far enough to actually grab it. In fact, you have learned that the easiest way to get something from the floor while standing is to simply let go with your hands and plop down on your butt. I blame the cloth diapers for this; they create too much padding and therefore make it all too painless for you to simply throw yourself to the ground when you want something instead of figuring out more complicated solutions. It's clear that you have inherited my tendency toward both efficiency and laziness.


I actually did start to wonder if you were a bit slow on the whole gross motor skills thing because on the 10-month checklist provided by our pediatrician (which they use at 9 months as well, since there is no 9-month checklist) you have mastered most of the skills in question in all the other areas: communication, problem solving, fine motor skills, personal/social. But you're about 50/50 on the gross motor, so in relative terms I was wondering if you were a little behind. I asked the pediatrician about this at your 9-month appointment last week and she said that now that we're at the age where gross motor questions are all about standing and walking, the checklists may start to make you seem like you're delayed. However, you aren't delayed so much as you are tall. With a high center of gravity you are more wobbly than most babies and therefore also more reluctant to attempt to walk, let go, or do anything else challenging while standing. She said she fully expects you to walk on the late side but that there is no reason to worry that this is indicative of any sort of underlying issue. I found this immensely reassuring, particularly as it spoke to my own personal wonderings of whether your size acted as a hindrance to your movement.


Because yes, you continue to be huge. But you know what's awesome? You only gained 2 ounces this last month. Two OUNCES. In previous months you had been gaining well over two POUNDS. You started tapering off last month, but this month the weight gain was essentially nonexistent. And that is fantastic, because my dear little (big) boy, you are HEAVY. And you're outgrowing all your baby equipment. And I'm afraid you're going to outgrow your cloth diapers. And all the bigger clothes assume older kids without baby bellies, meaning that pants squeeze you in the waist and still need to be rolled up in the ankles, DESPITE the fact that you are actually very tall. In fact, even though you only gained 2 ounces this month, you grew another 3/4 of an inch. That baby belly is receding fast, giving me hope that we WILL be able to continue to find clothing that fits you. Your current stats (as of last Thursday) are 27 pounds 7 ounces, 31.75 inches long, and 19 inches in head circumference. Under "percentile" on the little handout, the nurse just wrote ">100" for all three measurements. So. You might be tapering off but you continue to be positively enormous. Much to your father's delight.


You've made great strides with food in this past month as well. You hold your own bottle about 90% of the time, although you still require some assistance when it pops out of your mouth because you haven't totally copped on to the part where you have to tilt the bottle to get the milk to flow. You grab the spoon when we feed you yogurt or cereal or purees, and try to feed yourself. (Or try to throw the whole thing on the floor, but close enough.) And you're much more into finger foods. The pediatrician gave us the go-ahead to feed you everything except citrus, nuts, shellfish, and honey, and so we've been trying all sorts of new things. Pickles. Mac and cheese. Pancakes. Chicken. And you have just eaten it all up. It's so NICE that now during dinnertime we can put you in your high chair at the table, give you some of what we're eating, and all have a nice family meal. Of course most of what we feed you ends up on the floor, stuck to your butt, or in your hair, but you are definitely improving in terms of how much of what you feed yourself actually gets ingested. You've developed a good pincer grasp, so now you can actually pick food up and maneuver it into your mouth. Plus, one of your top teeth came in this month, and I'm assuming the other isn't far behind, so that may be helping with taking bites of food too. I'm hoping we'll be totally done with purees very soon.


You are still an incredibly delightful and social baby. You love peekaboo and you laugh hysterically when we play it. You search for hidden objects and you have started holding up a cloth or napkin in our faces to try to play peekaboo. You clearly know your name and look up and smile when we say it. You give kisses now, both upon request AND of your own volition--sometimes I'll be holding you and suddenly you'll say "AHHHH" and slam your open mouth against my cheek. You clap your hands constantly. You're showing us that you understand more and more words: you will often look around when I ask where Daddy or doggie is, you open your mouth when I say "more," and when we tell you "no" you will usually pause what you're doing, at least momentarily.


Oh, and you know what "night-night" means. I know this because I can put you in your crib and you'll be fine, but the second I say "night-night," even if I haven't so much as flinched toward the door of your room, you begin to scream. You do NOT wish to be abandoned, no matter how tired you are, and as a result bedtime and naptime have become a bit of a struggle. The thing is, though, that at least with bedtime the struggle is very short-lived. You will scream for a couple minutes and then conk out, usually for 11-12 hours straight. But naptime this month has been harder. Sometimes you resist the nap for ages. More often you go to sleep pretty quickly. But no matter how long it takes you to fall asleep, you've been waking up too early for my liking. You still refuse (REFUSE) to take more than one nap per day, which was fine when the naps were 3-4 hours each, but now you've streamlined, so to speak, down to 1-1.5 hours, and that is just not OK. By 5 or 6 p.m. you're exhausted, and since that is too early for bedtime we end up dealing with a cranky, fussy baby for a couple hours. And if you just add one extra hour to your nap--just one!--that buys us three happy evening hours. So let's get on that, shall we?


Still, even when you're overtired, you remain one of the happiest babies I've ever seen. Your Oma and Opa are here visiting this month and though they've been with us for more than a week already, they can't stop marveling at how happy you are, all the time. You're smiling and laughing constantly, and you tolerate nearly any situation. You don't mind your schedule being disrupted, you don't mind four people constantly wanting to hold you and play with you and tickle you, you don't mind being taken for two-hour walks in the freezing cold with near strangers. You are the epitome of the go-with-the-flow mindset and we are so, so appreciative.


You just always seem to be having a great time. You scream with laughter at the playground (swings and slides are your favorite). You crack up when your Oma puts a toy on her head. You shriek with delight when the dog so much as walks by. You babble and laugh and coo and smile and find absolutely everything fascinating. And it's infectious. You're always having a good time and thus we are always having a good time when we're with you. You are just so precious, and we just love you so much.


Love,
Mama

Accent vlog

I'm not going to The Blathering (SADLY) but everyone's doing this accent vlog, so, you know, me too! Here we go. Notes: 1. I highlighted my hair, and yes I do show that off in the video. Do you like it? 2. I don't usually hold my head quite so still when talking, but I was trying to keep my face in the frame. 3. In the video I keep talking about needing to finish before my in-laws arrive, and they totally walked in two seconds after I finished. I win! 4. I should totally get Torsten to do one of these, because he has the best accent of all.



For the record, here are the prompts:

Say these words:
Aunt, route, wash, oil, theatre, iron, salmon, caramel, fire, water, sure, data, ruin, crayon, toilet, New Orleans, pecan, both, again, probably, spitting image, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, syrup, pajamas, caught

And answer these questions:
What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that curls into a ball when you touch it?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you use to change the TV channel?

Pumpkin patch!

It's October, the weather is lovely, my parents are in town, and we have a baby. So we did like families the world over (well, maybe not the WORLD, but anywhere where they celebrate Halloween, and do so with pumpkins, and grow pumpkins in that country, and so on, ANYWAY YOU GET MY POINT) and took Callum to a pumpkin patch. A real one where you actually go into the field and cut the pumpkins off the vine yourself.


Eight and a half months is pretty much juuuuust on the cusp of being able to enjoy a pumpkin patch. Obviously he wasn't about to start picking out his favorite pumpkin and demanding to buy it. But when we sat him in the pumpkin field he was interested in the textures and the pumpkins, and reached out to grab some of the vines, only to discover that they are covered with sharp little spikes and pull his hand back quickly.


He was too young for the bouncy house, of course, and the corn maze and so forth. But he liked the petting zoo and he didn't seem to mind being seated on a bale of hay, or on an actual pumpkin. And we enjoyed the patch, and we didn't stay too long. Next year he'll be much more into it and it will probably be a more involved trip, but this year actually exceeded our expectations for the baby-pumpkin patch experience.


And, much to Torsten's delight, he really seemed to like petting his first goat. There were many delighted shrieks and big smiles.


So. A good first visit. And a good start to what will hopefully become an annual photo series. And a good start to October. Happy fall to everyone.

Dear Torsten, volume 5

Dear Torsten,

Five years and one day ago, you and I went on our very first date, the first time we'd met in person after a week and a half of emailing back and forth daily. Despite the fact that I was half an hour late, it seems pretty clear by now that the date went pretty well.


This last year has been fantastic and wonderful in ways that have involved a lot of change and therefore also a fair amount of stress. We've been through a start-up, two new jobs, a pregnancy, and, you know, eight months of babyhood. And through it all you have been amazing. Strong, motivated, caring, and you've never lost your sense of humor.


Recently we decided to finally have an electrician come and install outside lights on our house. You were trying to describe your vision to me. You were saying how we'd have three lights over the driveway on the things between the garage doors. I said, "The posts?" envisioning the columns we have in front of our garage. You said yes. I was very puzzled about why anyone would mount lights on columns, but we went gamely off to Lowe's, where you suggested a decorative iron lantern style light that would have looked ridiculous on a column. I stared at you like you were crazy and suggested plain, unobtrusive white floodlights. You stared at me like I was crazy, but agreed to buy them. When we got home you changed your mind so I threw my hands up and told you to get whatever lights you wanted. You bought the decorative lanterns and when the electrician finished installing them, you told me to come outside and take a look. I came out and the damn lights weren't mounted on the columns at all. They were mounted on the three sections of brick wall that separate our garage doors, and they looked fantastic. The whole thing struck me as really funny, because we spent so long talking past each other in Lowe's and the entire time you knew exactly what you were talking about and I was the one who was totally confused. It just goes to show--when I trust you, things come out right. Although I still maintain that sections of brick wall are not "posts."


By far the best thing about this past year has been seeing you as a father. You are so completely head-over-heels for our baby, and it's so amazing to see you together. The two of you are so very bonded and he just lights up when he sees you--and you light up when you see him too. You are such a happy and confident father, carting Callum around on one hip and getting up in his face to laugh and shriek with him. It is such a cool thing to have made a whole new person who is the combination of our two sets of genes, and yet also his own person entirely.


This whole last year we were on a pretty tight budget and as a result we didn't take a single vacation together until we finally did a long weekend in Santa Fe this last July. And while we both missed the vacations we would have liked to take, missed having time to get away and just enjoy each other without any of the usual everyday stressors, the constant wear of the day-to-day life didn't change anything about our relationship. We didn't get sick of each other; we didn't snipe at each other; we didn't feel like we needed any time apart. Such a thing never crossed our minds. The best part of a vacation is getting away with you, but the best part of not being on vacation and just living our regular lives is also getting to be with you. Really, it's a win-win.


The thing about being married to you is that it's just really nice. I don't know a better way to phrase it. It's just really enjoyable to see you every day, chat with you about everything from politics to people to travel to our baby and the daily minutiae of our lives. It's great to wake up to you every morning and go to sleep next to you every night. And I like seeing you during the day, too. And I hope we never lose the habit of gchatting each other even when we're just on different floors in the same house. It might sound weird, but I love that we have each other at our fingertips for anything we want to discuss, big or small.


Sometimes when I think about the life we've built together I just can't even believe how lovely and amazing it is. How lucky we both are to have found someone we connect with so perfectly, someone we match with on those big important "ideal mate checklist" levels and also on the little day-to-day things-you-don't-think-about-until-you're-married levels. And how lucky we are to have expanded our love to a whole family, complete with baby and even dog. I can't imagine any other life I'd rather have, any other place I'd rather be. Because you are here, and I will always want to be with you.


Love,
Jess