xtcian

i haven't laughed so hard (or outloud for that matter) in a very long time. holy shit, thank you mr. williams.

You know, you really don't need 3/4 of that stuff. Don't buy into all that American Consumerism Propaganda! All Lucy needs is two loving parents, some nourishment, and lots of love. Oh, and diapers. She already has all that.

I can't stress this enough. You don't need all of the stuff at Buy Buy Baby. You will spend hundreds of dollars on all that baby gear and then you won't be able to GIVE it away at a garage sale 2 years later. Save you $$ and put it in Lucy's college fund (The UNC fund, of course).

Thoughts:
1) Still laughing.

2) Buy Buy Baby. great name.

3) No photoshop involved. Don't you know they are engineered in Stepford, U.S.A.?

4) We have that "Hello" monstrosity with the door. Luckily, my husband still has his testicles intact. Couldn't grandma send SMALL toys?

5) So true, Laurie. The baby market is such a racket with the "must haves." And you should see the crap we've accumulated, mostly gifts as I'm too cheap to buy anything. We had to have the mack daddy stroller that has pockets for a cd player and speakers, and even cooks your dinner. Used it 2 months, now it sits in a corner and has been replaced by the much more efficient umbrella stroller. Now that Nicolas is 2, its starting all over again with "big boy" bed, bedding, toilet training. I am not buying a potty that plays music when he pees!

With all the toys the sell my daughters favorite is still a plastic diet pepsi bottle with popcorn in it. She has played with that the most out of all the toys she has.

Way to verbalize what has freaked me out for several years now.

Best store name came from Bart Simpson visiting a clothing store for boys:
Oui Monsieur

ian you should have gone downstairs to the basement, where the "gliders" are. that's where all the puckered out dads hang out. it's a pretty funny sight, actually. a necessary evil, that buy buy baby. the place gives me such anxiety; i have to take deep breaths and eat a complete meal before i walk into that....emporium.

I don't know. I found the gymboree, pack & play, bouncy chair and diaper genie to be pretty essential equipment.

and you wonder what happened to rosemary's baby?

best toy for a baby - a bunch of tupperware. although that pepsi with the popcorn sounds good too!

I am so creeped out by those Stepford Babies!

Do they sell Mainway products at Buy Buy Baby?

I've been looking for those great Irwin Mainway toys from the late 70s -- you know, like Johnny Switchblade, Teddy Chainsaw Bear, Bag O'Glass...

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76jconsumerprobe.phtml

We sure did have a lot of fun with those, didn't we?

It's called "baby porn."

On the opposite end of the consumerism spectrum here in Asheville: I was offering up our old Diaper Genie to a fellow mom who's currently expecting Baby 1. She politely declined and and stated that they were planning to go diaper free, to which I stood there blinking dumbly. Apparently this is a whole "movement" happening in Earthmotherdom, that involves observing your baby's elimination cues and responding appropriately (Google "diaper free" and you'll see what I mean).
I wish I'd had a camera to capture my husband's face when I was relating the story to him!

"elimination cues" BWAH! I haven't laughed out loud like that in a looooong time.

She was obviously a first time mom (as you stated, CarolineM), because any other parent who has been peed on by their own child at least a dozen times will know that there are usually very few "elimination cues" forthcoming. These are the same parents who have memorized every wrinkle on every digit and the pattern of fat folds on their baby's bum, so lack observation skills are not usually the problem.

"elimination cues"

whatever.

This Site makes 'diaper free' sound a lot less ridiculous: http://www.naturalchild.com/guest/ingrid_bauer.html

"Watching closely, the mother learns when the baby usually goes and how this relates to other bodily functions, such as sleeping or nursing. For example, many babies pee as soon as they awaken, and at regular intervals after nursing."

Personally, my experience matches Tanya's -- the only 'elimination cue' I've noticed was a warm trickle running down my leg!

I'm not a parent, though....

Ian - you had mentioned watching "Happiest Baby on the Block" at one point. Are the "5 Ss" working for Lucy? I'm reading the book now (gonna check out the video when I'm done) and Karp's advice seems to make a lot of sense. Just wondering if you've had success with it.

Also, is the sling working for Lucy? I'm thinking about getting one from www.hotslings.com. Slinging seems to dovetail in with Karp's ideas.

I almost felt panicky when I walked down the aisles of BabiesRUs filling out my registry. So many needful things...and with the Scan Gun of Power they give you, it's hard not to lose any inhibitions and start brazenly shooting at bar codes left and right. When I got home, I realized I had registered for over 300 items! Talk about temporary insanity...

Thanks for any input!

anyone out there know of a support group for folks married to duke alumni??

laughing my ass off, i called my duke-alum-but-otherwise-wonderful-guy-husband over to the computer to check out ian's hilarious captions above. i'm so used to the "i hated duke before hating duke was cool" banner running down the leftside of this blog that i was startled when my initially curious husband leaned over to read, then jumped back in horror and barked out "there is no way i'm reading anything with 'i hate duke' next to it!!'" and then stomped back to the sofa.

"whatever, who cares, get your butt over here cuz it's really funny!" pleads wife (reasonably, dontcha think?).

"no way. you never told me that this ian guy that you're reading all the time hates duke!" hubby sulks.

"i'm sure i've mentioned he's a tarheel, so doesn't it go without saying? eveybody hates duke...anyway, who the fuck cares?! this post is really, really funny, you'd love it after all the time we've spent in places like buy buy baby!" to no avail. aaaaargh!!

Best blog ever.