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!

So this morning, we all put on our Sunday best and went down to the Navy base, where E solemnly swore “that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

So help him God.

E gets to spend the next 5 years at the beck and call of the US Government and I got a nice certificate that thanked me for my service. Little Evan got one too.

To celebrate we went down to Mystic.

Splashed in some puddles

Got a family picture with E in uniform

We went to buy my dream stroller (UppaBaby, baby!) but the people at the store were…less than knowledgeable. I felt sort of like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman – I am in your store, trying to spend obscene amounts of money with very little effort on your part, and yet you can’t be bothered to help? BIG MISTAKE. HUGE.

It was really confusing. We looked totally respectable and not at all hooker-ish. I’m visibly pregnant & carrying a toddler, so I’m obviously not lost. The lady BOTH sales women were helping was buying $30 worth of dresses. No one can stop for a second to help me with a $800 stroller? (Does that sound SUPER bitchy and entitled? Yeah, probably.)

Finally, they called the owner who assured me I could have my stroller, on sale, with all the parts by Sunday.

So boo and yah!

Since E is shockingly unexcited by dropping wads of cash on a stroller (geez, why not dude?), we went down to Clyde’s Cider Mill to get him a little present of his own.

Cinnamon sugar donuts and a bottle of hard cider. There are no pictures because we inhaled the donuts too fast and I told E he couldn’t drink the cider until after noon. We’re classy like that.

And now we’re spending the rest of the day doing errands and being lazy while the weather decides if it’s going to be sunny and warmish or rainy, windy and cold. Either way, it’s been a good day already.

Happy Re-Enlistment E! Your family & your country appreciates everything you do for us!

I learned some lessons on round 1 of the baby ride, especially when it came to baby gear. We bought stuff we liked, we bought stuff we hated, we bought stuff that seemed unnecessary but is OMG VITALLY IMPORTANT and we bought stuff that seemed VITALLY IMPORTANT but ended up being useless.

I discovered a “co-sleeper” is just a  fancy word for “$150 bassinet” and if you plan to actually sleep with the baby you can save yourself $150.

The high chair I thought was very very necessary is collecting dust in the dining room while the clamp-on Phil & Ted’s chair I thought was probably a huge waste of money gets used 3x a day.

Nursery bedding sets are a joke. Buy a pack of 3 fitted sheets. The end.

If your baby hates tummy time, there is no tummy time mat on the planet that will convince them they don’t.

Sometimes a $7 umbrella stroller is all you need – and sometimes spending $400 on a car seat is totally worth it.

But if there was one most important lesson I learned, it’s to READ THE REVIEWS and LISTEN TO YOUR FRIENDS when it comes to baby stuff. If someone on the internet says “Hey, this high chair had a bunch of pieces fall off after a few weeks” they’re probably not making that up. And when your friend says “My kid REALLY loves that Sophie giraffe teether thing” you should stop balking at the $21 price tag and just BUY ONE. So when it comes to the stuff we’re going to need for round 2, I’m not spending a single cent until I get some advice from you.

We need a crib. Eventually. After Baby Sandy starts sleeping in 4 hour chunks of time, outgrows the co-sleeper and I decide I need my bed back. I’m thinking Ikea – they seem pretty well liked, I don’t think they’ve had any major recalls, and some even convert to toddler beds.

Advice needed #1: Does anyone own an Ikea crib they love? Or hate?

We need at least one double stroller. Probably two. I want a side-by-side jogger for Stroller Strides and in case I ever actually, you know, jog. Plus I want a tandem double for regular use, like at the mall or the aquarium or walking around the neighborhood. Since I’m not really interested in the jogging part, my plan is to buy a used side-by-side cheap (like really cheap, like probably from my friend Sarah for $20)(if she still has it)(Hey Sarah, I still want your jogger) and invest in a tandem.

Advice needed #2: Does anyone have a tandem double stroller they love? Or hate? My top choices so far are the Baby Jogger City Select, the (much more afforable) Kolcraft Contour Options Tandem II, the Phil & Teds Inline, or the Uppa Baby VISTA with the doubles kit. Advice on the brands in general is also welcome.

And I think we need another glider/rocking chair. The glider in Baby Evan’s nursery was such a last-minute decision – I had resisted buying one, mostly because the ones at Babies’R’Us seemed so expensive – but it gets used more than any other piece of baby equipment except for the crib. Our current glider is from Target. It is…functional. I mean, the arms are really loose and one of them keeps coming unattached and several screws seem to have fallen out and it squeaks a lot and it doesn’t recline so you can’t really sleep in it. But it still rocks. I guess we’ve gotten our money’s worth in the last 18 months.

Advice needed #3: PLEASE recommend your glider. It doesn’t have to be expensive but it can be. I learned my lesson when it comes to cheap chairs.

That’s it. Unless you have an absolute favorite baby item you cannot live without and want to recommend. Especially if it’s the sort of thing that helped you survive life with TWO children. Because I’m more than willing to take advice.

Giant pile of baby clothes

This is our guest room. Or at least it used to be our guest room. At the moment it’s an extremely large storage closet for Baby Sandy’s things. In that giant pile of stuff, I purchased exactly TWO items – the onesie I got at the Handmade Market and the Uff Da dress right in the front. (Because literally SECONDS after I found out the baby was a girl I was stalking Emily’s site like it was the last source of baby clothes on Earth. I CAN’T WAIT to have an actual baby to wear that dress. And maybe this dress. And this clippie. Which I totally did not buy “for the baby” but wear myself. Nope.)

The REST of that pile is hand me downs. Three giant boxes from my incredibly generous local friend Julie (some of which are second hand hand me downs and yet practically new) full of PINK PINK PINK, two boxes from the gorgeous and stylish Emmie Bee stuffed with Baby Gap, adorable Christmas PJ’s from my friend Sarah, and tiny sized cloth diapers from my friend Cheri.

And then there’s this:

If the shelf looks crooked it's because IT IS. The top part broke from the weight of that many dresses & sweaters.

Those are the vintage baby clothes my mom saved. Some of them are HERS, as in, she wore them as a baby. Amazing. Oh and that shoe holder in the door is 50% bonnets (BONNETS!!! NOT EVEN HATS!), 25% bloomers and 25% shoes or tights. I squee every time I go in there.

And then I cry a little thinking about where I’m going to put it all.

The sad part is this is not the nursery. It’s a guest bedroom we actually plan to use for guests several times in the coming weeks and where my mom will be living when she comes up to rescue me from total exhaustion and failure help with the new baby. Eventually all the baby stuff is supposed to move to the current master bedroom/future second nursery + playroom and our master bedroom will move to the third floor/current junk room + second guest bedroom if we’re REALLY desperate. This pile and closet are just a temporary solution until we can get the rest of the house sorted out – a task I was SUPER EXCITED about for exactly a week, until I actually went up to the third floor and looked at how much stuff we have. Too much. Way too much. I was all set to begin the organizing and moving and getting rid of stuff! Making room in my life! I could totally host a show about how decluttering is the key to true happiness!!

Until I went through a giant box of clothes I haven’t fit in since 2004 and only managed to give away 4 pairs of pants. And one skirt. Things I did not manage to give away include a pair of bleached, holey jeans embroidered with flowers, a tank top that says “bride” in rhinestones, and plastic pink high heeled flip flops (yes, you read that correctly).

There are at least seven more boxes like that one. And that doesn’t include E’s stuff.

Maybe I should stop taking people’s hand-me-downs until I can get rid of some of my own.

Or maybe I’ll just move it all to the basement and try to forget about it. Baby Sandy doesn’t REALLY need a nursery, right?

(Disclaimer 1: Yesterday and last night Baby Evan was a fussy mess. His 3 hour nap was broken up by several crying fits, stayed sad and grumpy most of the afternoon and got up twice last night, a record I would have thought was awesome just a few months ago but now sends me into a spiraling mess of exhaustion and hopelessness, as in “OH GOD I REMEMBER THIS NOT SLEEPING THING AND I CAN. NOT. DO. IT.” )

(Disclaimer 2: I don’t actually have a second child yet, so take everything with a grain of salt. Or maybe a ginormous, huge, Utah salt flats sized block.)

I’ve decided that having a second baby is infinitely easier than having a first baby.

When you’re pregnant the first time, most of your friends are childless. Childless people flock together like beautiful, exotic birds to go out on Saturday night and do fun things like drink alcohol in bars and rub up against each other and plan spur-of-the-moment trips to Thailand or Paris or Antarctica or Mars or whatever fancy location is hip this week. There is no place for babies in that world – it’s too hard to find shoes to match every color of poop. Even if you have a sister or a cousin or a best friend who had babies first, they probably aren’t a part of your daily social circle. You get all your advice from books or message boards or magazines and end up setting incredibly unrealistically high standards for every part of your life as a mom. You struggle through the first few months of babydom alone, or at least feeling alone, until you finally venture out of the house blinking and squinting at the lights like that poor groundhog in Pennsylvania, hoping the long winter is over.

The second time around, your childless friends have flocked away and you hang out with other parents. Parents understand babies. You meet at the library or at a playground or through daycare or a mom’s group or a local baby store. You plan mid-week playdates when all your old friends are at work and only visit coffee shops that have drive thru windows and take trips to the zoo instead of weekends at the spa. You plan to go to France and Antarctica and Mars together…someday. Right now you’re too busy trading baby sitter stats and tips for hiding vegetables in your brownies.

And Thank God for all of that. Mom friends have no problem listening to endless complaints about morning sickness and exhaustion and diaper explosions. They have real world advice on how to deal with teething and spit up and problems latching and first solids. They have maternity clothes in various sizes and seasons that they will lend/give you. Their garages and attics are full of boxes of baby clothes they are dying to get rid of, especially if you are having a baby the opposite gender from the first one. (You will, of course, still buy a few things yourself but you don’t actually have to.) They will watch your kid at the playground while you run off to find a bathroom because you need to pee. AGAIN.

If you’re super lucky, you’re mom’s group will have an organized Mama Meals program and by the time you actually get around to having the second baby your freezer will be stocked with enough frozen lasagnas and casseroles and homemade baked goods to feed an army of hungry husbands and toddlers.

You know that, realistically, you probably won’t need that crib for at least a few months so having a nursery done before 32 weeks gestation is overkill. You already have the baby gear you ACTUALLY couldn’t live without, rather than the things on the Must Have Baby Items Registry List Sponsored By Babies R Us, Enfamil And Your Own Psychotic Need To Plan Ahead.

You know that there IS such a thing as too many newborn size diapers.

And when the second baby actually comes and you’ve got spit up in your hair and haven’t slept in a week and would kill for a pizza instead of a frozen casserole, you will have friends who understand, bring you a frappuccino, and maybe even watch that pesky first kid for an hour or two.

I an 25 weeks today and I haven’t so much as opened my copy of What To Expect this time around. It is glorious.