Itchy & Scratchy & Boring
Today I get to take the dog to the vet, something I’ve been seriously dreading because a) he is impossible to control in the presence of other dogs b) it always costs an arm and a leg and c) he has fleas. Now I HAVE to take him to the vet to get some of the real fancy flea medicine instead of the stuff they sell at the pet store and get a speech from the vet about how if I had been keeping up the regimen monthly the way you’re supposed to he wouldn’t have fleas at all. Thank you, yes, I know. I am sufficiently contrite over my lack of good pet care. Fleas are one of those things you forget the awfulness of when you haven’t had to deal with them in years and years. And then suddenly you notice the cat keeps scratching her neck and within hours you can feel them crawling ALL OVER YOUR BODY ALL THE TIME. BECAUSE THEY ARE.
And then you find a flea on the baby’s head and you are the worst mother in the whole world.
So I’m taking the uncontrollable dog to the vet to spend an arm and a leg and get the speech and buy buckets and buckets of Frontline or whatever it is that actually kills these damn creepy crawlies. The dog and the cat version. Then we’re all going to the aquarium for a few hours while we bug bomb the house, floor by floor. Because if we don’t do something soon the cat won’t be the only one scratching her skin off in an attempt to feel less itchy. EW.
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In less disgusting (but probably incredibly boring) news, we drove up to USA Baby yesterday to actually try out the Uppababy before buying it and…um…I don’t think I want it anymore. The rumble seat is not the magical solution to all our double-stroller issues. The whole reason I NEED a double is for Stroller Strides and/or sightseeing type trips to the zoo or aquarium or city and the rumble seat of the the Uppa only faces in. Not great for, you know, seeing stuff or keeping a toddler entertained during mommy’s workout. I think if I was buying a stroller for our first baby that had the ability to work for a 2nd (or 3rd) baby I would be totally sold but after actually putting my toddler in it and imagining how it would work with an infant I’m less in love. It’s more of a “single stroller that can accommodate more than one kid” stroller than a “works great for 2 under 2” stroller.
Plus, we got to try out the Baby Jogger City Select, one of the strollers from my original list but a brand no one I know seems to have any experience with. It’s…cool. Really cool. It works the way I had imagined the Uppa would – baby/toddler can sit in either seat, face all different directions, works with an infant up to a 45 lb kid – AND it can be a single stroller when you don’t need both seats. E loves it & is MUCH more excited about it than he was the Uppa. I was very impressed, despite not wanting to be impressed. I WANTED to love the Uppa and join the Kool Kids Who Have One Klub. I WANTED a pretty orange stroller. I WANTED to buy a stroller NOW, not spend another week thinking about it.
Also, even buying the Uppa from the (stupid) baby store on sale, it costs more than the Baby Jogger.
So the only thing keeping me from committing to the City Select RIGHT NOW is…it’s not orange. Tell me that’s the worst reason ever for making such a big decision.
Or how about this one: I don’t want to tell the baby store I’m not buying the Uppa they had brought over from the other store. Even though as of Sunday they STILL didn’t even have a rumble seat (hence driving somewhere else to try one). It’s that same feeling of dread I get when a salesperson in a clothing store helps me find stuff and then I have tell them I don’t want it after all. Shopping guilt. As if the inconvenience of helping me some how means I’m obligated to spend my money, even if they weren’t that helpful to being with.
Does that sound crazy or do you know what I’m talking about?
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I asked for advice this weekend on what sort of stuff you love/hate on blogs. If you have a second, can you offer me your suggestions?I’m getting all itchy to redesign stuff (or maybe it’s just the fleas) and don’t want to accidentally ruin a good thing.
And speaking of things you hate on blogs, they reset the Top Baby Blogs, which means I’m going to beg for votes for a few days. I’ve met a TON of other awesome bloggers through that list so staying in the top 20 40 50 100 gives me the chance to meet even more mamas. I appreciate it bunches and bunches!
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Tags: baby gear, blogging, brutus, cats, dog, gross, pets, strollers
Fleas are one thing I do NOT miss about living in New England. A crippling fear of deer ticks applies as well. To go along with the bug bomb, perhaps get some flea control spray stuff to specifically attack places where the dog/cat tend to hang out and there may be flea eggs just waiting to hatch. With up to four dogs at any time growing up, I can tell you this from experience.
Can’t you just buy the fancy flea stuff (Advantix, Frontline, etc.) at PetSmart or the like? Thus saving you the trip to the vet?
I saw your tweet about the City Jogger and I must say, I kinda love it. Which sorta sucks, because if we have another kid, there is no way in hell the husband will be on board with purchasing another stroller. It’s not stupid at all to not be in love with it because it’s not orange. Stroller color is important. :-)
I THOUGHT I had to go to the vet for the Advantix stuff but it turns out they sell it at the pet store. Say the vet AFTER the $350 visit. Although that included a full doggy check-up, including vaccines & bloodwork. Our dog visit officially cost more than Little Evan’s 18 month check-up will cost on Friday.
DO NOT FEEL BAD ABOUT THE FLEAS. My dogs are on their monthly fancy flea meds (we buy Advantix or whatever at Sam’s/Costco), and they get bathed every couple of weeks, and yet they still have fleas. Fleas are the devil. It’s not your fault. In my case, it’s the fault of living in a neighborhood crawling with flea-covered stray cats.
Our stupid cat got outside a few times this summer & must have brought one or two flea in from the neighbor cats and then BAM. EVERYWHERE. It’s nice to know I’m not the only pet owner fighting them.
I looked at the City Jogger site and saw the little show of all the ways you can use it–I must say that you wanting a stroller to be orange pales in comparison to the fact that I want to have another baby just so I can get that stoller to use all the cool features–how messed up is that?? My husband would probably say the stroller reason to have another is even crazier than doing it to avoid having my period!!
Re: fleas–I feel for you! Hate them
The magic of that City Jogger is it works as a single OR a double. So even if you didn’t buy the extra seat now it would be PERFECT for adding another baby. You know, eventually. When you get around to it. Soon. NOW.
i totally understand about the shopping guilt..i get it all the time. especially at the small boutique type stores. i almost always buy something because i feel too guilty to look around and not buy anything.
Don’t let the guilt get to you. And don’t reject the stroller because it isn’t orange…
I totally understand wanting the cute orange stroller – Mommy has made sillier shopping choices! Mommy says that if you want she’ll call the Uppababy store for you and cancel. :)
Oh, I totally know what you’re talking about re salesperson guilt.
Also? My cats get once-monthly flea medicine from the vet that costs ONE MILLION DOLLARS, and it’s once a month as in I PUT IT ON THE CALENDAR—and yet sometimes we still find fleas. What the H? It must be some sort of SCAM.
I’m all itchy now :)
Oh, I really sympathize with you on the fleas. My battle with them began a year after my parents moved into their nearly 150 year old house. It still hasn’t ended…& it started 15 years ago.
To date, we’ve tried:
-bug bombs (multiple times). They only work if the fleas are killed BEFORE they hide–which is usually under or behind furniture & hard to reach nooks & crannies.
-flea shampoos. These aren’t worth squat, IMO. We went through BOTTLES of this stuff without seeing ANY kind of improvement.
-flea sprays. These work, but you have to spray directly on the floors, furniture, pets, etc., which can ruin the finishes. The only one we found that ACTUALLY worked to the point where we saw hundreds of dead flea bodies on the floor is called NaturVet Herbal Flea Spray. We got this at PetCo, & it DOES help. (I say this after years of an explosion of fleas to the point where we’d get dozens on our legs the moment we stepped into a different room, & it wouldn’t stop. & when we were about to go to bed, we had to sit on our beds & rub our hands over our legs in the dark before we could even think about putting a blanket over ourselves.) This cut down on the flea explosion AMAZINGLY, but it hasn’t completely eradicated them.
-flea meds. Frontline doesn’t work; fleas build up resistance to it. I learned the hard way after using it for a year. I had to switch to a less costly one called Bio Spot, which works, but leaves a greasy spot on your pets. It goes away after 2 days. My cats HATED this one, but it works. Somewhat.
-keeping the house SPOTLESS. All it did was leave us exhausted by vacuuming & mopping every other day.
-leaving bowls of water with a few drops of liquid dish soap on the floor. Only killed the adult fleas; did NOTHING to kill the eggs & larvae.
-Diatomaceous Earth. Several of my friends SWEAR by this stuff. It kills them by slicing open their exoskeletons & dehydrating them. They said it was a pain to work with, since it’s physically demanding (beating the stuff into cracks, into rugs/carpet, under furniture, etc.), but the effort was well worth it for them. (Some of them actually have young kids.) If you choose to try this, get the food grade. If you accidentally ingest it, it will not hurt you in any way. The other stuff is *toxic*. Here’s a bunch of links that help:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080327093102AA5po5i
http://www.crittercontrollers.com/where-to-buy-diatomaceous-earth.php
http://www.dirtworks.net/Diatomaceous-Earth.html
Phew. Hope this helps you somehow. :)
Oops. Didn’t mean to have all this in italics, lol. That was supposed to end at “…putting a blanket over ourselves.)”. :)
UGH. Luckily, our problem isn’t that extreme. Yet. The vet assured me the Advantage/Advantix stuff really does work and will interrupt their life cycle long enough that even the fleas in the house (as opposed to on the pets) should die. She also assured me I am NOT a bad person for having fleas – apparently they are really really REALLY terrible this year. They were actually sold out of almost all the flea medicine they carried.
She told me the same thing about Frontline too – it doesn’t work very well anymore because of the super-fleas that have built up a tolerance. How scary is that?!
Hmm. Well, hopefully the Advantage stuff will work for you. I tried it but wasn’t impressed with the results. But then again, this was during the height of the flea explosion.
Btw, you’re lucky your vet told you about Frontline. Mine didn’t even bother. I ended up having to do research when I noticed it wasn’t helping my cats as much as it used to.
It’s REALLY scary! Pretty soon everything we use won’t work anymore because they’ve all built a resistance to it & they’ll become like those superviruses. :X It’s VERY worrying.
In any case, I’m just relieved that my battle with the fleas is over. *knocks on wood* I now live in a 3rd floor apartment where the air is perpetually dry & my cat & I get shocked at least 20 times a day. LOL. :P
Ok, now you’re just going to think I am a lemming, but I am ALSO totally over my Uppababy obsession. I still think it’s a great stroller, but after trying it out at 2 stores and then finally falling in love all over again with my original stroller (Bumbleride Indie), I am now glad that I didn’t get one.
For what it’s worth, the Baby Jogger City Select and Baby Jogger City Mini are the only two strollers that one of the baby stores in Seattle carries. Because they are both just that awesome. I’d get the City Select. I like the red color, it is vibrant and jaunty. The Uppababy orange is great, but honestly I like the red City Select better! And don’t at all worry about canceling with the other store. Weren’t they the ones who were ignoring y’all in the first place?
I totally want a Baby Jogger now for baby #2! That thing is awesome! Don’t tell Brandon though, shh!
And fleas suck. Luckily we haven’t had any problems yet with Milo. Fingers crossed.
Ugh fleas, when I was little and we had a dog we were always getting kicked out of our house for flea bombs. My moms cat’s get them when they spend too much time outside (they are mostly indoor cats) and we blame the squirrels. Can you possibly blame the skunks for this?
That stroller rocks. Here’s what I think you should do. Go to the store and buy the red City Select. Have someone, like your mom or your husband call and cancel the Uppababy- or plead pregnancy hormones. With the money you saved, see if one of these ladies can make you a custom orange cover ;) (I’m not affiliated with these shops. I just have a Bugaboo, and have drooled over them before ;)
http://www.etsy.com/shop/thebabysbundle?ref=seller_info
http://www.etsy.com/shop/MyRockaBabyDesigns?ref=seller_info
http://www.etsy.com/shop/bbsprouts?ref=seller_info
Strollers are serious business. You have to have one you love ;) <3