Parenting in 2010 (Part 2)

Or... What else can new parents spend their hard-earned money on?

Bottle Labels

Colette and Janina gave us personalized bottle labels with Aiden and Reid's names on them. Before we received them, we were using the "Aiden on the left, Reid on the right" system of remembering whose bottle was whose. In the middle of the night, I would fumble the bottles and by the time I made it to the fridge, I wasn't sure I had it straight. Now that we have the labels, no more second guessing!

(Of course, no system is fool-proof. Initially, I put a light blue ribbon on Aiden's pacifier and a dark blue ribbon on Reid's. It took a couple of days of continuously retying Reid's ribbon, before it dawned on me that we only needed one pacifier to have a ribbon. Tonight, Eric was searching for Aiden's pacifier. We found it in Reid's mouth. Whoops. At least it took me 9 weeks before I made that error. That's pretty good. Right?)

Monkey Chairs
We refer to them as their "monkey chairs", but I think they're officially known as bouncers.



We're starting to zero in on more of a routine for the boys. Part of this routine is to feed them from bottles before they go to bed. I considered not doing any bottle-feeding when Eric was out of town, but when I heard of some babies refusing to take the bottle after a break from them, I knew we needed to continue. To be able to feed them at the same time when I am by myself, I put the boys in their monkey chairs, sit on the floor with my arms propped on my knees, and they feed away. I do realize that we're lucky to have seemingly non-picky eaters who don't mind drinking from the occasional bottle from a variety of friends and relatives who have helped us out.

BOB Double Jogging Stroller
The boys supervising the construction of the stroller from their monkey chairs. Well... Aiden supervised; Reid took a siesta.

We already have one stroller frame that holds the boys' car seats. However, once they out grow their car seats, we will need a different stroller. Who knew that would be such an agonizing decision. I started researching options in December. I finally settled on a BOB stroller. It was a hard decision because these are insanely expensive. But I felt that it was going to best fit for all of our needs and was lucky to have several Amazon gift cards that I had saved from Christmas and my birthday. It just arrived a couple of days ago and I love it. Eventually, I hope to actually jog while using it.

Our first stroll was over to my parents' house while my dad was supervising the movers.




This morning, we strolled over to the pond. Hello, geese.


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Made chocolate cake tonight. Found the recipe on my cousin's, prom-date's, mom's blog. Easy and yummy.
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Finally... in the "how to comfort two at the same time" category, I present the double-decker hold: