anZel/Arden

Archive for the ‘Equipment’ Category

minivan family

In our preparation to welcome Miss. Arden Zhen, we emptied the remainder of our bank accounts and purchased a new car and car seat.

First, the big car purchase. Before we went for “car shopping,” beeber and I looked each in the eye and decided that “we will NOT buy a minivan!” There’s nothing wrong with the minivan and the folks who drive them, we are just not a “minivan family!” The other requirement we had was that it has to have 3 rows of seats because we will almost always carry 6 people (dAd, beeber, anZel, Arden, grandma Helen, grandpa Sam) in it.

With that in mind, we got some recommendations from our friends. The one that kept coming up was the Mazda5. It’s supposedly not a minivan AND it has 3 rows of seats!!

We checked it out a couple of times and also checked out the Kia Rondo, which is supposedly the equivalent of the Mazda5. The Rondo was actually shorter than the Mazda5 and the two doors were not sliding doors. It didn’t quite work for us as there would be no room at all to put anything once the 3rd row seat is used.

So after much deliberation and negotiation with the Mazda dealership, we broke down and got the Mazda5 Sport with a 6 CD changer. As we were waiting in the dealership to get all the papers signed, I looked down at the tag that was attached to the key and noticed that it said “Body Style: Van”!!!!!! And as we finished signing the paper with the finance lady, she shoke our hands and said, “Congratulations on your new MPV”!!!!! WTF, she thinks the Mazda5 is the new MPV, a freaking miniVAN!!!

I am forever doooomed…we are now a minivan family!

With a new car, it’s time to get a new car seat for Arden as well. We purchased a Britax Marathon from baby catalog before so we checked them out again. They still have the lowest price around, $209 no shipping (to CA) and no tax!!

Boppy pillow really does work…

We’ve been using lots of pillows around us the last few days during anZel’s feeding sessions. However, it’s been a big hassle coz everytime we try to find the right set of pillows and stuff.

This morning I rushed to Babies R Us and bought one of these boppy pillows.

Tried it immediately after I got home. It worked out great. It’s thick enough that it will hold him up duing the feeding and it’s soft enough that it won’t hurt him.

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.

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.

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.

In search of slings

Started a new search project. B33b3r is very much into slings these days and wants to find out more about them. A quick check on Amazon found this: The Ultimate Baby Wrap.

This one is rated 4 starts after over 150 reviews. There’s a couple other 5 star ones but they generally only have 1 or 2 reviews.

Love to hear more from you on slings..