Austin360 blogs > Bottlecaps & Wingnuts > Archives > 2008 > April > 15 > Entry
Stuff for your Smurf
The boy is turning into a sweet potato.
If you’ve seen the photos and thought he had a yellow tint, it’s not just the photographer. He does have a yellow tint. And the doctor says it’s because he eats a lot of yellow vegetables.
It could be better: He could eat lots of peas, and we’d have a tiny little Incredible Hulk. It could be worse: He could eat lots of carrots, and we’d have a burnt-orange kid.
Too bad there’s no blue vegetables. We could have a Smurf.
So it’s been one year. I’ve seen other parents list the top baby items they couldn’t live without. And I don’t want to be left out. Besides the obvious (car seat, crib), here are the things that saved our sanity in the last year:
Top item: A clean, comfortable, cheerful and pleasant nursery. During the construction phase, I might have cussed the nursery. I might have thought that the painting and the pictures and the furniture was going overboard. But I sure don’t today. During the parent-freaks-out-over-first-month-of-first-child phase I slept in the recliner we had in there many times. The boy likes being in his room and that makes all the effort we put into it worth it many times over.
Runner-up: The video monitor system. It’s expensive. Two of my cousins teamed up to buy us the one we’ve used and I bless them heartily. Ours is a camera mounted over the crib (with cool night vision!) and a monitor that stays by my side. Boy making an odd noise? Click the button to see what he’s up to. Worth every cent.
Three: The baby mobile that goes on the crib. Soothing music. Hypnotizing motion. Freaky-looking jungle animals.
Four: Coffee. If you don’t have a taste for the cheap stuff, work on it. Because you will no longer be able to afford $4 cups when you have a kid.
Five: A good pediatrician. If you don’t like yours, keep searching. Nothing beats having confidence that your sick child will get prompt and careful attention.
Six: A digital camera. It’s the only way to satisfy a grandparents’ demand for photos.
Seven: Friends who will give you hand-me-down clothes. Sometimes it seems odd to put the soccer shirt on the boy, or the Cozumel T-shirt, when we’re not soccer fans and haven’t been to Cozumel. But it beats buying clothes he’s going to outgrow in three days. And he doesn’t mind what he wears / drools on / smears sweet potato on.
Eight: Exersaucer. A cure for constipation. A contraption that will let you eat a sandwich in peace. An immobilizer that will let you take a quick trip to the bathroom. Plus, our kid actually likes it.
Nine: A good stroller. We have a fleet of them: the expeditionary scout stroller, the all-terrain strike force stroller and the battle wagon. Overkill? Not if you like getting out of the house and saving the last shreds of your sanity.
Ten: Baby books. Lots of them. If they’re touchy-feely, have flashing lights, crinkly pages or pop-up action, even better. For a sweet little while in the early months, the boy would sit in my lap and listen to me read them and watch as I turned the pages. Now, he has to turn the pages, chew on them, fling them around. We’ve taken a backward step from literacy, but I think once he realizes that the toys he likes so much right now have an extra benefit, I think we’ll take a great leap forward.
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