Monday, March 30, 2009

Milestones (Part 1)

This weekend we took Wiggle on his inaugural trip to IKEA. It took more than the usual amount of planning to pull it off, as his carseat, which is located in the middle of the backseat, greatly limits the available space in the car to pack the inevitable mountain of stuff we bring home.
One of the necessary items that prompted the trip was a crib for Wiggle. As of late he has been kicking his Moses basket so much, I fear his tipping it over, plus he just seems unhappy in it, so we decided it was time for a crib.
While checking out assorted baby stuff on the IKEA website before the trip, I came across a folding changing table. Up until now we have been changing Wiggle on the floor, which is great because you can walk away to throw away the diaper, wash your hands, or whatever without worrying he will hurt himself, but our knees were starting to rebel, and it was taking longer and longer to get up and down to change him. Initially, I avoided a changing table because I didn't want yet another piece of baby-only furniture in the room, so a table that can fold up seemed like a great solution. Once we saw it, I was even more convinced that it was the right way to go. Now we have to move him before we wash our hands and such, but he seems to like it, and my knees are already thanking me. Plus the cover zips off for washing, which is awesome.We also acquired our first toy that requires assembly. Wiggle had been seeming a little bored as of late, and we were starting to feel a little ridiculous getting in his face and shaking various toys all of the time in order to keep his attention, so some kind of activity center was in order. We had looked at babies 'r' us, but like so many of the things in that store, their options were prohibitively expensive, huge, ugly, and appear to be created by the makers of Adderall. A toy can apparently never have to many colors, oversized plastic parts, flashing lights, annoying noises, and even smells. Yes, I said smells. We saw a whole line of toys that advertised their ability to stimulate a baby's sense of smell, in addition to sight, sound, and touch. As one might imagine, these toys (all made by Lamaze) smell like various bad air fresheners, but are supposed to smell innocuously like vanilla and lavender. Needless to say, even though some of the toys looked pretty cool (I especially liked Octotunes), we did not buy any.
Digression over, we found a good-looking, reasonably priced, plenty stimulating, but not over-stimulating, toy at IKEA.
Here is C setting it up (notice that Wiggle is overseeing the work).
And here Wiggle is enjoying the finished product.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, I really enjoyed reading this! The portable changing table looks VERY cool, and I love seeing him smiling and kicking his feet with excitement as he looks at the mobile! This is wonderful stuff!

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