anZel/Arden

Archive for April, 2006

It may be starting

Well, it maybe starting. It doesn’t seem like anZel wants to wait until the 28th to come out…

Beeber’s nesting mode

Beeber’s made it as you can see from her post. Instead of working, she started nesting. She’s starting to clean out all of our junk and setting up anZel’s crib and stuff. As you can see from this picture, she’s ready!!

Btw, the crib is probably our best buy so far. Beeber got this Pali crib, along with 4 fitted sheets, 1 bed skirt, bumper and 2 changing pads, for $100!!

We don’t plan to use the bumper though coz our new born class instructor said it could be a cause for SIDS and it’s not recommended for use.

I made it

I am finally and officially on maternity leave. I can’t express the excitement of being able to focus on nesting! Since I had to work, I had to hold of on cleaning until weep hours in the morning. It was tough; especially the nesting mode is on!

I look forward to spending time reading, sleeping, cleaning, surfing on the web, writing and exercising…the possibilities!!!

In search of slings: Kangaroo Korner Adjustable Fleece Pouch

Since we chose the Britax Marathon and not an infant car set, we need some way of carrying an3el around without always having to push the stroller. We looked at some slings at Babies R Us and also did some research on the web.

Given that b33b3r is fairly petite, we needed something that’s adjustable. Found this one, Kangaroo Korner Adjustable Fleece Pouch, the other day, figure some of you may be interested. We’ve heard some good things about Kangaroo Korner from various friends.

Carseats and stollers: one more try

So last week we were so excited we went ahead and gotten the car seat and stroller from Babies R Us.

After we came home, I started doing more research and found this site that could have saved over $130, no tax and no shipping!!!

For that much $$, we decided to go ahead and re-order the Britax Marathon car seat (Portland, $219) and Peg-Perego Aria (Safari, $159) from this site. We promptly returned the other ones to Babies R Us.

Today (<1 week) both the car seat and stroller arrived and I got both of them setup and ready to go.

In search of car seats: final decision

This is the month to get everything ready. We have been buying all the stuff we’ve been researching about. This time we bought the final big piece, the car seat.

After going over many car seats and spending hours at Babies R Us, we’ve decided on the Britax Marathon Convertable Car Seat.

We’ve decided not to get an infant car seat. Instead, we will use the Marathon along with a sling (we have one from B33b3r’s sis-in-law.) It will be a bit of a hassle to have to pick up anZel each time but B33b3r wants to hold anZel all the time, so this will work out.

We were originally considering the Britax Boulevard, but it seems like anZ3l will be a bit tight when he grows up, especially if this is suppose to hold him until 65lbs. The price wasn’t really an issue here since the Boulevard is only $30 more than the Marathon, retail.

We never really looked at too many car seats other than the Britax car seats. I think we have made the right decision.

In search of strollers – Final decision

A while back I wrote about the Peg-Perego Aria MT Stroller. After much discussion and research, we have finally decided on it.

The Aria is pretty easy to put together. It took me maybe about 5 minutes to pop all the wheels, canopy and cup holders in.

We looked at quite a few strollers as you can see from my stroller series. We looked at a few more recently, including the 2006 Maclaren Techno XT Stroller.

The Techno XT is actually my favorite, however I was outvoted based on two reasons. First, it’s $100 more than the Aria. Second, it’s 6 lbs heavier than the Aria. B33b3r is fairly petite, so #2 is quite important to her.

The Techno XT definitely met ALL my technical requirements, including a canopy large enough to cover most of the stroller, large wheels for easy maneuverability, comfortable seats and others. So if money and weight are not issues, get this one. High recommended.

Baby Diapers – Seventh Generation

Boy, LOTS of stuff to buy lately. Baby diaper is one of those things you just have to get before the baby comes. We did quite a bit of research on baby diapers and considered the pros and cons of using paper diaper vs cloth diaper. At the end, paper diaper won out because of the ease-of-use. Price wise both are about the same, but cloth diaper’s just too troublesome.

However, even with paper diaper there’s a TON of choices. We looked at the usual suspects like Pampers, Huggies, Luvs, and others, all of them seem ok, but at the end we decided to go with Seventh Generation Chlorine Free Baby Diapers, Stage 1

The price is a bit more expensive compare to others, but the fact it uses totally chlorine and fragrance free materials won us over. I think at the end of the day it will be better for the environment and anZel.

Stretch marks

B33b3r’s been using this anti-stretch mark cream for a while and it seems to be pretty good. We first got it from her sister-in-law in Hong Kong. After using it for a while, it really seems to work pretty well. Decided to get another stick from Amazon. Guess where it got shipped from?! Hong Kong!

Baby bathtub

anZel is coming soon, in about a month. We have been looking around for a bathtub that we can use for a while. Checked out a bunch of baby bathtubs on Amazon as well as went to Babies R Us. All seems very fancy and have stages in which they recommend the tub to be used for. Like stage 1 is so many months and stage 2 is so many months.

I am like all confused with the selection and they all seem too restrictive and can only be used for a short time. We are looking for something simple and will last for a few years, not a few months. So we ended up getting one from a store in China Town in San Francisco. Very simple, easy to use, and will definitely last a few years if we are careful.

B33b3r’s sister-in-law also gave us this net that goes on top of the bathtub so you don’t have to hold up the baby all the time. It actually seems pretty useful. We’ll see whether it works when anZel is here.