The BabyBjorn Soft Bib

Back in September I asked for bib recommendations, even though I was pretty happy with a few of the brands we'd been given as gifts. Both on the blog and through other channels, many people raved to me about the BabyBjörn soft bibs, so I figured I'd give them a try.

I feel like the word "soft" is a bit of a misnomer here, because I consider terrycloth a fabric that's soft. These bibs are made of plastic... and yes, while that plastic may be toxin-free and slightly bendable, it's not exactly what I'd call soft.

The front of the bib is molded into a little catch-all pocket at the bottom, and the back of the bib can be adjusted for fit like so:

Baba G had already been eating in his high chair for a few months before we tried the BabyBjörn kind, and I think that's the reason they just weren't going to fly. They were too different from what he'd gotten used to, likely felt weird and heavy around his neck on top of being a bit distracting in the front, and therefore he became more interested in playing around with the bib than he was in eating.

I'm trying to eat these puffs, but this big thing keeps getting in the way...

... so let's play with it!

Look mom, it's a new teether!

This is what happened every time I put the BabyBjörn bib on BG, so I stopped using it.

The bottom line: From the nearly 250 positive reviews on Amazon on top of all of the personal recommendations I received, it is clear that many parents out there love these bibs. They certainly ARE easy to wipe down and clean. However, they didn't work for us, and I think it's because we didn't use them from the start. So my recommendation would be that if you want to not have messy food-filled-and-stained cloth bibs to throw in the wash every other day, you should probably try the BabyBjörn soft bibs as soon as your kid starts eating solids. If that's all they know, then they're not going to be as thrown by the unusual shape and feel of these bibs later on. At least that's all I can chalk Baba G's resistance up to!

A 2-pack goes for $18.50.

For a refresher on the bibs I've always liked and am now sticking with for good, see this post. And truly, thanks to those who recommended the BabyBjörn bibs — if I ever have another baby I will try them for the First Feeding and never look back!

Boon Flair Pedestal Highchair

Yes, the Boon Flair highchair looks like it's straight out of The Jetsons. Yes, the only colors it comes in are kind of obnoxious. And yes, at $200, it is expensive. But there was not going to be any other highchair for Baba G—I loved this thing the second I laid eyes on it, despite the fact that it doesn't go with our condo's decor AT ALL (though it would fit perfectly in my dream condo... which only exists in my head).

But come on, you have to admit it is cool:

The orange button at the base adjusts the height, and there's a pedal in the back that works as a brake if you have to wheel it around. Otherwise it glides effortlessly with a gentle push, yet still manages to hold tight in one spot on our wood floor at all other times. I haven't used the orange button since we first set the height we wanted, and I've never needed to use the brake.

Chop, chop! Where's my grub?

What drew me to this chair, besides its overall look, is that I didn't want a highchair like they have in restaurants. Why? Because I didn't want to have to wipe down all of those posts, that's why! Yes, laziness and a hatred of cleaning drives many of my decisions.

I also didn't want anything to be able to fall out of the sides of the highchair. With the Boon Flair, whatever BG doesn't throw onto the floor is going to be captured in the seat or on the tray.

There's an orange pad on the seat that can be removed for extra room, and the tray comes with two transparent tray covers that easily snap on and off. When one's in the wash (yes, they're dishwasher safe but also take about 1 second to wipe down) you can use the other. I think I've only had to wipe down the actual try like 2 times in 4 months. Things are getting a bit messier now, however, since BG is trying more finger foods.

On top of wanting an easy-to-clean highchair, I also wanted one that had over-the shoulder harnesses. I knew the reality would be that I'd often have to walk back and forth from the sink or not be right there sitting across from BG every second he was in the chair, and I didn't think a lap belt would be enough. The shoulder harness does the trick -- he has never gotten out of it and it doesn't seem to bother him, either. You can put also enough slack in it so your kid can bend forward a bit to pick up stuff from the tray.

 Speaking of the tray, my only complaints would be that to take off the tray you have to move a lever underneath to the left and then pull it forward to release the tray. This was tricky at first when my wrist issues were worse. But now I don't even think about it.

About 5 1/2 months old and patiently waiting...

Also, the tray is too small for our Skip*Hop plate set. But at this point BG isn't actually using the plate part of that set, so it's OK. I'm actually not sure if ANY try for any highchair would be big enough for that plate.

Nine months old and still pretty patient.

The bottom line: I love the Boon Flair Pedestal highchair (with pneumatic lift). It moves easily on the wood floor when I need it to, stays put when I need it to, is very easy to clean, seems comfortable for Baba G, and looks cool. So if you're willing to splurge ($200), I say go for it!

OXO Tot Feeding Spoon Set

Before I get into the real subject of this post, I just wanted to thank everyone who left travel-advice comments last week, both here and on Facebook. The exciting news is that Baba G's passport application is IN, and I just booked our trip a few hours ago. I'll keep you in suspense as to where we're going, as that is definitely a topic worthy of multiple posts. But I will say this: planning a vacation when a baby's going to be in tow is STRESSFUL.

You know what else is stressful? Trying to feed a kid who bites down on his spoon and WILL NOT LET GO.

I had been feeding Des with a short baby spoon made by Skip*Hop (I'll write up that set some other time when we actually use all of its pieces). But since we only had that one spoon and we actually thought we lost it for a short period of time, I realized I should have some back-ups. I spent about 5 seconds researching baby spoons on Amazon and selected the OXO Tot Feeding Spoon Set because it was highly rated, I've liked other OXO products I've bought for myself/our kitchen, and, really, isn't a spoon just a spoon?

I thought so... but now I'm not so sure. The OXO spoon is significantly easier for me to hold while feeding BG because it's longer and is angled just perfectly. But its soft material (the Skip*Hop spoon was hard plastic) seems to be enticing the heavily teething BG to clamp down on it rather than eat.

It was hard to get a picture of this while I was feeding him, but you might be able to tell from his expression (and his forming fists) that this poor spoon is taking a beating.

Spoon Tug o' War

I'm not kidding when I say that I can't get this spoon out of his mouth. It's to the point where I'm afraid I'm going to pull so hard that I'll crack one of his teeth, so instead I wait for him to ease up or I try to distract him (his water cup usually works) until he lets go. I am shocked by the strength of his four teeny top teeth, his two bottom teeth... and his overall willpower and general stubbornness. (Let's try to not think about what that last part means for his teenage years.)  I'm also confused as to why he wants to just bite down on the spoon rather than eat, since he's always seemed to like every flavor of baby food we've given him.

So is the problem the spoon, his teething, or his 'tude? It's hard to say. I've found that if I barely let the spoon rest in his mouth I can get it back out before he clamps down. This leads to food splattering all over the place every once in a while as I whip a fully loaded spoon out of his mouth, but at this point there's really no way around a huge mess at feeding time, anyway.

"There is no spoon." - The Matrix

The bottom line: I like the OXO spoon a lot because of its length and angled end. So I'm going to chalk BG's biting up to the fact that he's teething like mad and pretty much tries to bite everything that's even remotely near his mouth. The OXO spoons come in a set of 2 for $7 on Amazon and are available in multiple colors.

The Nuby Grip N' Sip Cup

The full, official name of this product is the Nûby No-Spill™ Super Spout™ Grip N' Sip™.

The day I bought it, however, it was the I-didn't-get-off-my-butt-and-buy-my-kid-a-training-cup-and-he's-supposed-to-be-drinking-water-now-and-this-is-all-they-had-at-Walgreens Cup™. But make no mistake, I do actually like it.

I was getting waaaaay too stressed out about which sort of training cup to buy Baba G when he began the transition to solid foods. Our pediatrician said to start giving him a little bit of water out of a cup during those feedings, just to get him used to the concept of drinking from something other than a bottle. I figured a cup that had a soft silicone spout would help bridge the gap. And then it was like I became so overwhelmed and confused by all of the options I saw online that it finally got to the point where I said "Screw it" and bought the best option I could find at my corner drugstore.

So that's how we ended up with the Nûby cup. It has worked well and BG took to it right from the start. We've used it for about a month now, and while I still have to hold it for him in order for him to actually drink out of it, he is getting better with figuring it out on his own.

Nothin' to it.

Though he still likes to goof off with it.

Look, Ma, no hands!

The bottom line: There are literally 5 bazillion types of training cups, and I think Nûby alone makes about 1 billion of them. The kind we bought (I am NOT typing out its long-ass official name again) was about $6 and serves its purpose. Baba wasn't thrown by it at all when I first attempted to give him water from it.

What I don't like is its awkward-to-screw-on top with those huge handles that come down on both sides. It won't leak if you screw the cap on correctly, but doing so is hard because its handles get in the way. I also wish it had come with a cap so that we could take it outside of our condo without fear of getting the spout dirty.

Does anyone else kinda see EVE from Wall-E?

But guess what? One of the 1 billion types of cups Nûby makes solved both of those problems! The handles come from the stationary bottom, and there's a cap included as well.

You guys are on your own trying to figure out the official name of this one, though. Sorry.

In Search Of: An Even Better Bib

When Baba G was a newborn, I couldn't figure out what to do with the multitude of bibs he received. He wasn't going to be eating anything for a while, so what was the point of teeny-tiny bibs? Why did we get so many?

Now I blame my lack of connecting all of BG's spit-up episodes in the early months with THE ENTIRE POINT OF A BIB.

As you may recall, I was using these (admittedly awesome) burp cloths to deal with dribbles and whatnot. I'd stuff one under BG's chin while he was taking a bottle or use one to wipe up messes after the fact. I didn't realize that I could've avoided changing BG's outfits, oh, say, 100 TIMES PER DAY if perhaps I'd thought to have a bib on him at any and all times when he wasn't sleeping.

I did eventually come to my senses and started putting bibs on him to help preserve his outfits during and after feedings. But it wasn't until he started "solid" foods that I fully came to appreciate the wonder of a decent bib.

Some of my favorites are made of a terry cloth material, like this one (which snaps in back):

BG's very first solid-food experience. Totally clean and contained.

But then BG's Great Aunt Terry sent along two of these huge, over-the-head terry cloth bibs by First Impressions, and I was hooked. So many bibs itched BG in the back because of Velcro fasteners (which wash horribly) or otherwise weren't snug enough under his chin... defeating the entire purpose.

My bib may rock, but home-made sweet potatoes leave much to be desired

I mean, look at how much bigger the First Impression bib is when compared to newborn and other "normal" infant bib sizes:

Size does matter.

I was also pretty intrigued by plastic bibs from Crocodile Creek. These wiped down quickly and easily, but alas, they had Velcro in the back.

Yes, he is eating peas. And yes, that's a "first tumble" scar on his nose!

So here's what I'm In Search Of: a bib that has soft terry cloth material around the neck and that you put on over-the-head like the First Impression bibs... but then the rest of the bib is made of easy-to-wipe-down plastic like the Crocodile Creek bib.

Does a bib like this exist?

What other bib inventions are out there that I'm missing?

(Unfortunately I couldn't find where to purchase First Impression bibs like the ones BG was given, hence the lack of a link for those.)

Fisher-Price Luv U Zoo Busy Baby Booster

I'm back from my Girls' Weekend in New York, and somehow everyone at home survived without me—imagine that. Thankfully my husband and I were able to set up a video chat each morning after Baba G had his first meal of the day, and it was clear that BG could actually see me. I would make funny noises and faces and he would laugh and laugh, so it helped convince me that he wasn't going to forget who I was. Ah, the miracle of technology!

Today I decided to write about the Fisher-Price Luv U Zoo Busy Baby booster seat we received as a gift. The friends who got it for us loved theirs so much that they wanted us to have one, too. After the recent Bumbo seat recall, I thought it would be especially timely to talk about this product since people might be on the hunt for alternatives. Though, having said that, I know a ton of parents who love love love the Bumbo seat and are annoyed that the recall only happened because idiotic peeps left their kids unattended in the seat... on top of tables and stuff like that, which was always clearly against the "intended use" instructions. On the flip side, my physical therapist is not a fan of Bumbo seats in general, saying that kids don't need them to learn how to sit up on their own. Which is true.

The Fisher-Price seat I'm talking about in this post isn't meant to be a sitting aid or anything like that, it's supposed to be a booster seat that you can attach to a chair either in your home or out at a restaurant. (See to the left how it folds up to carry along? Not exactly the smallest thing to haul with you, but still.)

We have yet to use it for that purpose, however. After Baba G was sitting up on his own, I would put him in the seat for short periods of time when I needed to Swiffer the floor or clean off his play-tile area or was otherwise unable to hold him or be right down on the floor with him.

And guess what? He loves it. In addition to being a booster chair, it's a mini "activity seat" that has a little arch of spinny toys you can snap on to its tray. Baba G LOVES spinny toys, especially ones that have tiny colorful balls in them like the alligator in the center below. (I threw a few more toys on the tray, too.)

You spin me right round.

Whatchu lookin' at?

You can't see it in these pictures, but unlike the Bumbo seat, the Luv U Zoo booster DOES have a restraining belt to fasten around your kid's middle. The other straps you can partially see in the pictures above are what you're supposed to hook around a chair.

So we did exactly what you're not supposed to do in that we put the seat on our low coffee table in order to feed Baba G his very first meal—we didn't have an actual high chair at the time, and the only place we could really sit across from him in a semi-comfortable fashion was on our couch (with him facing us on the coffee table about six inches away).

Bring on the grub!

Gimme that... rice cereal? I was hoping for ice cream.

We only used this set-up for about three days and then our high chair arrived. But it worked well and we obviously never left him alone in the seat at all.

Now the seat is actually taking up residence on the play mat, and it remains a great option to put him in for a short break. Since BG is crawling all over the place now AND pulling himself up to stand on things, this chair—with its belt-restraint and tray toys and perfect size—is a godsend.

The bottom line: I highly recommend this booster seat and am so glad our friends got it for us. It seems like a lot of other people are big fans, too, judging from the reviews on Amazon. On top of providing a safe, secure place to put your already-able-to-sit-up-on-his-own infant when you can't be holding him or on the floor with him, it's really easy to wipe down. It was also given the thumbs-up from Desmond's physical therapist (more on that some other day!). And while we haven't taken this seat to a restaurant yet, our friends set theirs up for their son while out to brunch with us, and it worked like a charm. They're around $45 on Amazon.

My Brest Friend (Or, the Most Horribly Named Product Ever)

Let's just get it out of the way right upfront: "My Brest Friend" is perhaps the corniest, most unappealing, stupidest product name of all time. Don't even get me started about the intentional misspelling. This product's name is also misleading, probably to its own sales-revenue detriment, because you'd think that whatever this mystery item is must have to do with breastfeeding and nothing else. I seriously would LOVE to know who came up with its name. I want to meet that person (why do I think it's a dude?) and congratulate them on their audaciousness. They seriously have to be leaving so much money on the table. 

Now that I've vented about how much I hate this feeding-pillow-thing's name, let me say that you KNOW a product has to rock if it can have a devoted following (and celebrity endorsements!) in spite of such a horrible and embarrassing-to-say brand. So do yourself a favor and put aside your judgments and hear me out:

1) I registered for My Brest Friend ("MBF" from here on out) because I knew people who had used both the Boppy and MBF and said the latter was far superior. I trust these people.

2) As far as I'm concerned, my friends were right-on. I never used the Boppy so I can't really compare against it, but I can say that MBF was indispensable to me AND my husband for at least 5 months.

3) While the pillow is marketed as a breastfeeding-support tool, it works just as well to help you hold your baby when feeding him a bottle, reading to him, or just chillin' with him. For someone like me who ended up with a ton of hand/wrist/arm/shoulder issues after my little guy was born, I literally could not have held Baba G without MBF. His booty and legs would rest on the platform and then I would still be cradling his upper body and head in the crook of my arm so that he was in a reclined position while drinking his bottle or listening to a story or whatever. As mentioned above, my husband used it, too, as did one of BG's grandmas during a few visits.

It That Shall Not Be Named

The part that goes behind your back was exactly the right thickness and felt really good. But what I liked most was that the two ends of the pillow hooked together (the white buckle on the left) so that it was secure around your waist. I don't believe the Boppy has that feature. I actually walked around my condo looking a fool with this thing on, but I didn't care, because after I got all of BG's stuff AND my stuff ready for his feeding, I could just plop him on MBF and get him situated as I was easing in to the glider. MBF—or any of these sorts of pillows, I would imagine—are not the kinds of things you can mess with once you've got a hungry baby in your arms. You just need to have it stay in place and provide a secure (and large enough) platform for your baby to rest on. Because of the buckle, which could be tightened as needed thanks to the velcro strip attached to one end, I knew that MBF wasn't going to fall off when I stood up (yes, I would walk short distances with BG on it, too—taking him to and from the changing table and whatnot). Yes, I still had to support BG's weight underneath and all that when I was standing up, but when he was a newborn MBF was definitely sturdy enough to feel like it helped take a little of the burden off of my arms.

And as inconsequential as this may seem, I LOVED the little pocket thing in front. It was in just the right spot. I would keep my "lip stuff" (I'm addicted to chapstick), my glasses, ear plugs (more on that some other day) and sometimes my phone in that pocket. In the wee hours especially, it was nice to know where I could find all of those things at a moment's notice.

As I promised to reveal in my last post, THIS is the secret use for MBF: tummy time. It took us a few weeks to figure out (by accident, really) that Baba G would not cry his eyes out when he laid on MBF (versus everywhere else in those early days).

This thing is called WHAT?

The bottom line: I couldn't recommend this ridiculously named product more highly. Most designs are $40, some seem to be a little cheaper (but only like $5 cheaper... I had the "deluxe" version but I'm not sure what made it "deluxe"), and there are also versions for twins as well.

Dr. Brown's Natural Flow Bottles

Will you let me eat in peace, please?

In a few past posts I've mentioned that Baba G spits up quite a bit every now and then. Since the last time I've written, guess what I've discovered? Surprise, surprise—it's all been my fault. I was using the wrong "level" of nipple on his bottle.

When trying to decide what bottle system to register for (yes, for those of you reading this site who don't have kids and are instead looking for gift ideas, there really are entire SYSTEMS for bottles, it's insane), I let others do the hard work for me. A friend of mine's husband is German and really looked into the pros and cons of the various brands and they ended up using Dr. Brown's Natural Flow bottles after initially trying Avent (which their son apparently didn't do well with).

I figured, "Hey, he's German and Germans are good with design and if they already investigated this whole thing then who am I second-guess?"

So I, too, went with Dr. Brown's, and I think they've agreed with Baba G. As you can see from the picture below of our drying rack, the bottle is comprised of a few different parts that help create the patented "natural flow" that supposedly is proven to head off colic and preserve nutrients and other miracles like that. The bottles are very, very easy to put together, so don't let the multiple parts scare you. After initially boiling them once, now we just wash them in warm water after each use and then air-dry them. I think we have six 8-ounce bottles that we cycle through, but obviously we could get away with fewer. It's nice to have the extras already clean when I'm short on time or groggy for the first morning feeding, though.

Back section has the 5 Dr. Brown's bottle pieces, front section has various bottle caps

BG has never had any problems with these bottles . . . until recently, when he started spitting up more and more. Since I had read that babies were supposed to spit up LESS after they hit the four-month mark, I started to wonder if something was wrong. That's when I noticed a little teeny number on the underside of his bottles' nipples. They either said "Level 1" or "Level 2." I had vaguely recalled that as a baby got older they were supposed to graduate to a higher level—it had something to do with how quickly the milk came out or something like that.

So in my infinite wisdom, WITHOUT actually looking any of this up to be sure, I decided that I would only use the Level 1 parts because surely the Level 2 was shooting the milk down his throat too quickly and causing all sort of nasty things to happen to his insides.

Unfortunately, I was dead wrong. The Level 1 parts are for newborns and you're supposed to switch to Level 2 at some point around three months (BG turned five months old yesterday). Otherwise the kid is going to get all frustrated that he's trying to drink and hardly anything is coming out and he's going to start sucking in more air. And more air leads to more spit up.

Time to clean the bottles! (Always.)

Oops.

They COULD make this a little more obvious on the packaging, in my opinion. I've got another other crap to keep track of, seriously.

But now I've hidden all of our Level 1 parts, ordered additional Level 2 stuff (and even ordered some Level 3s in advance—those can be used from six months on) and BG has been doing much better. He still spits up a little bit, but it's nowhere near the level it was before. And thankfully his sleeping troubles seem to have passed for the time being as well. He's back to being a Buddha Baby, rejoice!

I will say that there has been one issue with the Dr. Brown's bottles aside from my confusion over the levels, and that's that they are starting to leak every once in a while. I'm not sure if this starts happening after a while no matter what, or if I'm just not putting everything together as tightly as I should, but I did a quick google search on ALL of the major bottle brands "+ leaking" and they all seem to have issues on the record. To stop the leaking all I have to do is rotate the bottle slightly, so it's really not a big deal. Certainly not a big enough issue to switch systems after BG's done so well with this one. And it APPEARS (though it's only been a few days, so I can't say for sure) that now that I've switched to the Level 2s, there's less leaking (if any). So maybe the Level 1s weren't really meant to be with the 8-ounce (the biggest) bottles. I'm done thinking about this!

I'll leave you with a random, 27-second video of BG attempting to control his bottle. He started putting his hands on the bottle before he was even four months old, and then he started doing the thing I caught on tape, which was taking the bottle in and out of his mouth. (So rest assured that is NOT me taking the bottle away and then slamming it back into his face, that's his doing.) I feel like he's very pleased with himself to know that he's behind this movement. To paraphrase a song from my high school days that I'm now ashamed to admit I actually liked, "He's got the pow-ah!"

The bottom line: I can't judge Dr. Brown's Natural Flow bottles VERSUS any other brand of bottle, since we've never used anything else. However, I will say that if we'd suspected that BG was having problems because of his bottles, I would've switched out the entire system in a heartbeat. But so far, so good. If anyone has had a positive or negative experience with this brand or any other, please leave a comment and fill the rest of us in!

The Dutailier Glider

Ours has little flaps that hang down from the arm rests, too

Some people get Baby Envy when their friends bring home a little bundle of joy. But I had Glider Envy long before Baba G was but a twinkle in my eye. Everyone I knew had one of these things, and back when the first round of my friends started having kids seven or eight years ago, there were several-months-long waits for them. Pregnant couples just couldn't order their gliders fast enough.

That's not the case now, thankfully. I found this out when I started researching them around the halfway point in my pregnancy—prepared for "Out of Stock" statuses—but found exactly the opposite. You can get one of these puppies delivered and be glidin' away in as little as two days.

In case you've never experienced a glider, I'd describe it as a step up from a rocking chair. The movement is horizontal rather than up and down. I don't feel like I'm doing it justice. It's a very peaceful experience.

Because of its high cost, the glider was one of the few products for which I actually did hands-on testing before Baba G's arrival. We went to baby stores all over Chicago and sat in different gliders, and our efforts confirmed something that I'd read online: if you're on the taller side, the Dutailier glider is really your only option. None of the other brands make their seat-backs high enough for you to rest your head on. Which is, like, a REALLY important thing when you're feeding your kid at 3 in the morning and need all the help you can get and don't want to get whiplash when your head falls back into nothingness when you accidentally doze off while your baby's resting peacefully on your chest (see pic(s) below).

Plenty of head-rest space for sleeping daddies (and babies)

I'm pretty sure that even if I'd never gotten pregnant, I would've still ended up with a glider one way or the other, that's how much I love them. I knew I wanted one that also reclined and came with a gliding ottoman. But when I first ordered ours I did not pay attention and accidentally selected one that didn't double as a recliner. I freaked out when it arrived, because my husband had already assembled it and pretty much destroyed the packaging before I realized that it didn't have the reclining feature. The official name of the glider we bought is: the Dutailier Round Back Cushion Design Sleigh Glider Multiposition Recline and Ottoman Combo.

Rolls right off the tongue, no?

Thankfully the Babies R Us gods were smiling down upon us on the day we attempted to return the glider to a store in the suburbs (even though we'd bought it online). It's technically against the BRU policy to accept gliders bought online as store returns, but like I said, we lucked out. Anyone who's ever dealt with BRU in any capacity whatsoever knows how rare a feat that is.

I literally have hundreds of "sleeping BG & daddy on the glider" pics

And it was meant to be, too, because then when I went to REorder the correct glider online, I saw it on Amazon for $200 (!) less than it had been at BRU. It was just a freak sale they were having—and continue to have every once in a while for these products. So if you think there's even a remote possibility that you might buy a glider (any brand of glider) one day, start tracking the prices well in advance. You'll soon get a feel for how often they go on sale and how low the price can get.

Don't laugh, but we ended up buying two. Or, rather, my parents bought one as a gift for us and we bought ourselves the second one—one's on our main floor and one's downstairs in our TV room where my husband usually gives Baba G his final bottle for the night.

Speaking of... Baba G has been known to spit up. A lot. Today he turned it up a notch and had some sort of mini-explosion all over the glider. People had tried to tell me that choosing a dark-colored fabric would be a mistake because it would show baby-related stains immediately. But those people were wrong. The microfiber fabric on the glider is a dream. I just wet it lightly with a washcloth and it was like, "Mini-explosion? What mini-explosion? Nothing to see here, move along." I wonder if the light-colored fabrics hold up as well, hmmm?

As you can see below, my husband has perfected a pretty handy feeding position with the help of the ottoman. My leg muscles aren't strong enough to pull this off, though (remember, the ottoman glides, too!).

Our dog asks, "When am *I* going to get a glider of my own?"

The bottom line: Clearly we are fans of the Dutailier reclining glider and ottoman or we wouldn't have two in our condo. I believe we bought ours for somewhere around $600 (I'm an Amazon prime member and shipping was free, yahoo!). Were other recliners we sat in comfy? Yes. But their seat-backs weren't high enough for us to be able to rest our heads. That's but one curse of being tall. For us, the glider was worth the cost because I know I'll still be getting my glide on long after BG has moved out, graduated college, and is living up to the meaning behind his name ("man of the world"). I'll be old and gray, sipping my morning tea in my glider, watching the world go by outside our front window. And then I'll probably think back to when BG was just a teeny little guy and I was sitting in the very same spot, gliding him to sleep in the wee hours right after we first brought him home.

And then he'll call me on his hologram phone and appear magically in front of me, life-sized, like Princess Leia in Star Wars, and he'll say, "Mom, are you just sitting there in the glider again?" (Remember, this is like 25 years from now. I'll be damned if they won't have hologram phones by then.)

Babies R Us Interlock Burp Cloths

I put my husband in charge of all of the big-ticket items on our registry (he basically just went from whatever was recommended in Baby Bargains), and then I rounded the list out with the basics. Things like onesies, blankets, washcloths, bath stuff, and burp cloths.

I don't even remember choosing the Babies R Us Interlock Burp Cloths out of the ridiculous number of burp-cloth options available, but I'm incredibly glad I did. These things ended up being THE BEST, most absorbent cloths on the planet.

Who knew these would be some of my favorite baby things?

So much so that I ordered six more of them (they come in three-packs) a month ago because I couldn't be without them when the original three were all in the wash together. I've got two blue sets and one yellow set. But they of course also come in pink.

In the early days, Baba G would spit up a ton. Somehow these cloths would take all of that wetness in and still feel dry to the touch when picked up again later on. I think there's some sort of magic in them.

The other great thing about them is their size. Perfect for tucking under dribbly chins without getting in the way.

Chug, chug, chug!

The bottom line: Affordable (they're $10.99 for three, but are often a part of BRU's many, many sales) and SO useful. If you're a new parent or a parent-to-be, put these on your registry without hesitation (assuming you're registering at Babies R Us, that is). If you're buying someone a baby gift and these cloths are NOT on their registry list, buy them anyway. Your friends will thank you later when they realize how nice it is to pick up a cloth that is NOT all slimy and wet, trust me.