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Because I don't own a car, driving is an adventure, especially when you're surrounded by careening semis. Also, basically no one seems to know how to drive (including us).
My husband can put together the pack and play in less than five minutes. He has challenged me to beat him, and I will. We've both had plenty of practice--we put that thing together and broke it down at least once in four different states.
Indiana is flat, flat, flat. At least the parts of it I've seen. Flat but beautiful and filled with the nicest Starbucks employees ever. There are also a lot of soybeans, in addition to the endless, glorious fields of corn.
Infants really do grow faster than their parents are able to comprehend. At the beginning of our trip we could easily change our son on the portable changing pad laid out on the back seat; a week later he is too long.
With my first child, there were a lot of things I didn't buy because I passed them off as unnecessary or just plain stupid. The truth of the matter was I was scared, broke and inexperienced. Now that I have most of the essentials in house, I think that this time (when that time arrives -- no news yet!) I could afford to be a bit more frivolous.
1. A sling: I know, I know. Your child lived in the sling. Why would I turn my nose up at the sling? Now I see the merits of the sling, like being able to nurse comfortably and privately in public, or having your hands free to wrestle down a highly mobile toddler.
2. A really good all-in-one pack n' play: With a two bedroom house, the new baby will have to sleep with us for a few months. With our new pillow-top mattress, co-sleeping is out of the question to due SIDS safety concerns. So it's time for something that can go right beside the bed as a bassinet, change table and cage play area all in one shot.
3. The Bumbo chair: These chairs were just coming on the market when Nate was small. They help prop up small infants into a seated position. At the time, I thought they were largely unnecessary, but recently I read an article in Today's Parent that mentioned putting the baby in this chair while the older child entertains him or her gives you time to prepare dinner. I guess a bouncy chair would also do the trick.
4. A car seat carrier stroller: The stroller that my infant car seat came with was stolen off my porch last Christmas, so I need something lightweight to replace it. I love how light these are and the amount of storage they have underneath.
5. An exersaucer: I never had one for Nate, but always loved their ability to keep him entertained while we were visiting friends who had one. 6. The Brest Friend: I had a nursing pillow, but this thing is the Cadillac of nursing pillows. It has a place for drinks and magazines and the phone. It supports your back
What about you? Anything you'd get for the next time around?
Earlier today, Kristin was wondering about traveling with her son and dealing with public washrooms. Coming from a household where anything that was not Armenian was dirty, (Yeah, Ma's crazy, but you can't help but laugh at her nutty reasoning.) I pay a lot of attention to what makes a good public family washroom.
So often well-intentioned restaurants and retail outlets miss the mark when it comes to family-friendly facilities. At Holt Renfrew, an upscale Canadian department store, there is a lovely, large-enough-for-the-stroller Mother's Room within the washroom area. You have an armchair to nurse your child and it's behind a frosted class door, so you don't feel like you have to go into a closet to breastfeed.
But if you, a human and a mother, want to pee, there's no toilet in the Mother's Room. And yes, you may not want to pee where you feed, but an adjoining WC would have been a nice touch. So you have to take your stroller out of the calm that is the Mother's Room and pray that the handicap stall is available so that no one steals your baby while you pee.
(Really, these women are buying Diane Von Furstenburg dresses for their casual wear, so they probably don't need to sell your baby on the black market. But you're sleep deprived so it becomes a distinct possibility.)
This summer on our "Silverthorne Baseball Road Trip USA," (yes I was drunk when I agreed to that) we crossed into Pennsylvania from New York and took a picnic/pee break at the first Welcome Center. Lo and behold, this pull-down seat! (see photo, right) I nearly crapped myself when I saw it. (At least I was close to the can.) You can securely seat your baby on the wall beside you while you do your business.
What is your ideal public washroom? Got any good washrooms to recommend? Maybe if we talk about them, more businesses will take note!
We've had quite the problem with the smell of my son's room. We have two in diapers and keep the changing table in his room, by the door. Besides the changing table, we have three different containers to put diapers in, depending on the diaper.
I cloth diaper my children, so the cloth diapers go into a special "cloth diaper" pail (with a lid) for the wash. If the diaper is urine only, it goes into the "pee pail," which also has a lid. Special poopy diapers get their own place in the Diaper Genie.
Why so many containers? We're cheap and those Diaper Genie refills are expensive!
Only problem with the arrangement is the smell. No matter what I've tried, and we've tried a lot, the room had the smell of a place full of stinky diapers. As much as I loved my husband's idea of storing the diaper pails in the garage (hello, flies!) I had to pass. It was too inconvenient.
They suggested soaking a cotton ball in some essential oil and taping it inside the diaper lid. I also saw suggestions for those of us who use cloth (really, it isn't as bad as you think, I actually quite enjoy it) to drop a cloth wipe into the diaper bin with a few drops of essential oil on it.
I did just that, choosing some lavender oil for my son's room. Seems to work well, though at first I didn't realize how strong of a smell the oil had and ended up filling the room with an overwhelming aroma of lavender and poop.
Now, just a drop or two is much better and takes the edge off.
A Norwegian primary school headmistress had a meeting her school's janitors, who were fed up. It was an affront to their dignity, they said, to constantly clean up the pee that the little boys in the school couldn't get in the toilet. These Norwegian kids, it tunr sout, had poor aim and were getting piss all over the floors. The headmistress sat back at her desk, drumming a pencil against her stern, Nordic brow, and set forth an edict: henceforth all little boys must piss sitting down.
Anne Lise Gjul, the headmistress, merely sought not to offend her janitorial staff, but has now effectively offended the members of Norway's right-wing "Justice and Order" party, who feel that it's a boy's God-given right to piss standing up. God, they say, gave boys the ability to pee standing up, and decided it was good. "If boys are not allowed to pee in the natural way that they have done for generations, then it amounts to an assault on God's creations," said Vidar Kleppe, the head of the conservative party, which should consider changing it's name to the "Piss on the Seat by God's Decree" party.
It turns out Gjul never actually issued any edict. I made that up. She really simply wrote a letter to her school's parents asking them to discuss at home whether boys should instead sit down when they go for a pee. That suggestion pissed off one Nancy Bakke, whose 7-year-old son, Benjamin, attends Gjul's school. For months, she insisted, she had painstakingly taught Ben how to take proper aim while urinating. "This rule goes against everything that I have tried to teach my son," she said. Painstakingly, huh? Wouldn't want to undo all that painstaking work, Nancy. Benjamin's obviously going to have enough to talk to his therapist about in 15 years.
I remember babysitting a friend's children when Everett was a little older than two. Her youngest was 19 months
and into everything. Especially: the diaper wipes. She'd empty a container in 90 seconds if you turned your back for a
second.
Everett wasn't much different, but his love: the diaper changing pad I'd made. He's still a bit possessive
over it, even though he's mostly potty trained. Before Truman was born, I made a special pad just for him so Everett
wouldn't be too jealous.
And now, Truman's head-over-heels in love with the diapers. The diapers, and everything
that goes along, are all accessible - there was a child-proofing latch that broke off a couple of years ago - and Truman
sees it as one big round-the-clock playground. A few times a day, I'll have to remove a diaper from his mouth and set
about picking up, and putting back away, the diapers, powder, and bags of wipes.
But hey! No choking hazards!
That's something to be thankful for.
With my first child, there were a lot of things I didn't buy because I passed them off as unnecessary or just plain stupid. The truth of the matter was I was scared, broke and inexperienced. Now that I have most of the essentials in house, I think that this time (when that time arrives -- no news yet!) I could afford to be a bit more frivolous. 
Earlier today, Kristin was wondering about 
A Norwegian primary school headmistress had a meeting her school's janitors, who were fed up. It was an affront to their dignity, they said, to constantly clean up the pee that the little boys in the school couldn't get in the toilet. These Norwegian kids, it tunr sout, had poor aim and were getting piss all over the floors. The headmistress sat back at her desk, drumming a pencil against her stern, Nordic brow, and set forth an edict: henceforth all little boys must piss sitting down.
