Sing with me! 🙂

I figured I’ve been a mommy long enough now to have a few favorite things, so I thought I’d share in case anyone out there needs some tips.

So, in no particular order:

1. LUVS Diapers These are wonderful! B tends to be very “productive” at night, and we have yet to have a mess. They’re cheap, too, especially at diapers.com if you catch a good coupon code.
2. Medicine Pacifiers When B first was diagnosed with reflux, and the pharmacist handed me this set of pills and said to mix it with a teaspoon of water and feed it to the baby, I looked at her like she was crazy. A teaspoon doesn’t sound like much, but for a baby, that’s a lot of liquid to take in all at once. These pacifier things are great – they have a little reservoir on the back of them that comes off, so you just fill it with whatever they need to take and – voila! – no mess or unhappy baby. We got ours at Walgreens and I plan on getting one for every new momma as a present!
3. Zip up sleepers Since B is so big for his age – about to outgrow 9 month outfits at 5 months! – it’s been hard to find him clothes that still make him look like a baby instead of a big kid. I’m not ready for big kidness yet! These sleepers are warm, fuzzy, and he looks snuggly in them. And I don’t feel like I should be taking him out for a walk or getting him his driver’s license.
4. Hand blenders I just got this thing last night, and already I’m in love. B is just on the edge of starting solids. He’s doing great with rice cereal, so we’re hoping to introduce new stuff starting tomorrow. I wanted to try to make my own baby food, since several of my friends have done it and said it was easy. I have a huge food processor, but it’s so hard to clean up. This thing works great – I just made enough avocado, banana, and sweet potato “cubes” to last him about 2 weeks! The banana took all of 2 minutes to mush since I didn’t have to cook it first! And we all know how I feel about bananas, so the less time in the presence of one, the better.
5. Fisher Price Space Saver High Chair Our table is a bar height table, which means that a normal high chair wasn’t going to work – he’d be looking under the table. So we got this little one that straps to a chair, and it’s great. B will sit in it while we’re eating and just play with a toy, so we can all sit at the table together and eat. It also tilts just enough so that he’s not straight up and down, which is still hard for him. And we can take it anywhere, so if he’s going to spend the day with a grandparent, it comes with us and they don’t have to have an extra chair in the way.
6. Jumperoos If you haven’t seen one of these things in action, you are missing out. Basically, it’s a seat with bungee cords on all four sides. Some of them attach to a door frame, ours has it’s own frame because we don’t have a good door to use. It’s got toys all the way around to play with, and when he’s been cooped up for a while, B loves to just jump and jump and jump. It’s a good way to work off some energy – I wish they had adult sizes!
7. Sue Boynton books If you haven’t read Moo, Baa, Lalala or Snuggle Puppy, you are missing out. All of her books are board books, so they’re thick pages that can be man-handled by little hands. And they are all very silly. Silly enough to make an adult giggle, and plenty silly to send kiddos into fits of laughter. There are tons of them, and I think B will need the entire collection in time.
8. Skippyjohn Jones books Despite Andy’s serious logic issues with these (ask him about the shape up book), these are great, too. Skippyjohn is a sweet little siamese cat that has lots of educational adventures. For some reason, Brenden adores these books. I might prefer Snuggle Puppy, but he’s grabbing for Skippyjohn Shapes Up every time.
9. Sippy cups with silicone lids We just started using these, and they’re fabulous. They don’t leak – Brenden can throw them around and nothing comes out. That is, until he sucks on one then spits out whatever was in it. But that’s more of a leaky son issue than a leaky cup.
10. Recipes on the internet and Super Baby Foods Like I said before, I’m learning to make my own baby food, because it’s cheaper and you have control over exactly what is in it. My two weeks of food I made this morning probably cost a total of $2.50. Not bad! I got a book called Super Baby Foods for Christmas, and it has a ton of good info in it. There are a few things that I wasn’t sure about, so I looked up “making your own baby food” on the net. There are HUNDREDS of websites with recipes, tips, tricks, and ideas out there! Mommies of the world, unite!

That’s it for now, I’m sure there are lots of other favorites. I’ll close with my favorite new pic of B:

The End