8 weeks, 3 days: Safari Hat

We bought a fold-up stroller from a lady down the street, and she threw in this adorable hat for Ms. Bean.

Baby Nest Baby Carrier: Things You Can Do While Wearing a Baby

When Devyn was about four days old, my parents and my sister and I went to a cool baby store here in Denver called Eco-Politan so Emily could buy some specialty cloth diapers and accessories. While we were there, the owner let me try on the Baby Nest—with my baby in it—and I was completely sold. My mom bought it for us and I have worn it at least part of the day nearly every day since.

I had been in the market for a Moby wrap, but the Baby Nest seemed easier because you don't have to tie it; it's just two loops of stretchy fabric that you can wear in different ways to carry your baby (up to 35 pounds!). It's totally easy, I can put it on and off by myself, and Devyn LOVES it.

Turns out, you can do a lot while wearing a baby (who doesn't otherwise want to sleep during the day unless she's being held). You can:

• blog
• eat a meal
  
• read the Sunday paper while standing up and bouncing
• take a walk
• do laundry
• go to the bathroom (hey, I'm just keeping it real)
• pick up clutter
• file papers and pay bills
• put your feet up and watch Doctor Who
• put on makeup and brush your teeth
• water plants

Things I have found are difficult while wearing a baby:

• putting a fitted sheet on the bed
• picking up anything off the floor
• reaching anything high above your head

Not a bad ratio, if you ask me.

Non-Baby Stuff That's AWESOME for Having a Baby: Gaiam Balance Ball Chair

It's so daunting to register when you're having a baby. I remember being somewhat stymied by picking a china pattern and deciding how many place settings of flatware to register for as a bride, but the confusion then was nothing compared to the confusion I felt registering for my first baby, before she even got here. Did I really NEED a baby tub? I mean, our tub/shower isn't really conducive for bathing a baby, so maybe... Do we need a bottle warmer? What about a wipes warmer, touted by many as the ultimate in ridiculous baby accoutrement, but endorsed by my wise sister?

But some of the stuff that has turned out to be MOST important so far with this kid was never on our registry.

Take, for example, our Balance Ball Chair from Gaiam.

My father-in-law, a consummate garage saler, found this for me for $10 several months before we even got pregnant, but during my pregnancy and after, it has been an absolute god-send.

Early in my pregnancy, I used the ball—sans chair—for working out, as lots of the prenatal strength training exercises I was doing called for use of an exercise ball. And, once I started working from home, sitting at my desk on the ball chair for four or five hours a day was about the only way to make my work days not wreck havoc on my lower back.

When I grew more enormously pregnant, our sofa suddenly became a pale blue, overstuffed trap from which I had a great deal of trouble escaping. Add to that the advice my doula gave me about sitting up as straight as possible during the last month or two of my pregnancy and the ball chair moved permanently from the upstairs office to the living room next to the sofa that wanted to eat me. Being able to sit up straight, be comfortable and get up and down without the use of a pulley system was absolutely invaluable as I grew larger and larger.

But I assumed that once baby arrived, the chair would migrate back up to the office—not so. Almost immediately, my family and I discovered the bouncy potential of the chair for comforting a fussy baby. My sister, who helped immensely during those first few days when Devyn's "witching hour" fell between 8 and 11pm, endorsed "aggressive bouncing" for calming the otherwise inconsolable little bean baby. Two weeks in, bouncing on the ball chair remains one of our favorite pastimes.

New, the chair does not come cheap, but knowing what I know now, I would absolutely recommend a mom-to-be add one to her registry—either for that extremely generous relative who abhors stepping into a baby store, or for a gaggle of friends to collaborate on.

Sartorialist Barbie

Should Baby Bean decide, one day, that she wants to play with Barbie dolls, I think we should buy her interesting vintage ones off eBay and then get all their clothes from tinyfrockshop.com — how cool is some of that stuff??

Bonus: none of the other little girls will have those pieces, so no chance of Bean's Barbie showing up to a play date dressed in the same outfit. (HOW EMBARRASSING!)