Baby Items I'm Glad I Bought + Ones I Wish I Hadn't

In case you missed it, I shared a few of my favorite baby items (and a few I could have lived without) over on Apartment Therapy last week. The funny thing is, the list would have been totally different if I had written this when I had Violet! Is it just me or did anyone of you have a different must-have list for each of your babies?

Because I Actually Get to Feed My Baby Real Food This Time Around...

Even though Lucy is my second baby, I feel like a new mom when it comes to feeding her. With Violet we weren't able to give her anything but breastmilk or her prescription formula until she was over a year old due to her extreme food intolerances, so I never really got the experience of feeding food to a baby. Now that I'm fully into that arena with Lucy (she's now ten months old!), there are a few things that have been quite new for me.

1. Food stains! Violet's clothing stayed sooo much cleaner than Lucy's does - I didn't realize how messy feeding a baby can be!
2. We go through bibs like crazy - I feel like we have a thousand and I just can never keep enough clean to last the whole week.
3. Sticky fingers, sticky faces, general stickiness. Of course, when Violet was a toddler we dealt with the sticky fingers thing but we were blissfully unaware of how sticky a baby can get.
4. Where do you feed them when visiting friends? I'm not about to lug my high chair everywhere we go, so where do you put your baby when you're visiting a friend (or even a restaurant) who doesn't have a high chair? I usually end up just holding her on my lap, but what a disaster that always turns out to be! I'm thinking maybe we should have invested in a portable high chair of some kind, but now I'm wondering if it's a little late in the game to actually get our money's worth out of it? I'm really liking this one by Inglesina:

So pretty! It comes in a bunch of pretty colors and has gotten really great reviews, plus they're not too pricey. Any words of wisdom? Is it worth it at this point?

Thanks so much from a second time mama, first time baby feeder lol! xo, Lauren

P.S. Tips for Little Eaters

Favorite Parenting Links Lately

Looks like I'm not the only mom dealing with mom guilt, sleep issues, and those oh-so-adorable but manipulative creatures that they call three-year-olds. Who knew?

I feel like I could've written this post myself - I'm not a shopaholic by any means, but I've been struggling to curb my spending habits and live within our means as much as possible while I'm off work this year with my babes. Going from being a two income to a one income family is no joke.

Looooved reading Em Henderson's birth story - she's always so candid and real.

I so frequently find myself telling Violet that's she's beautiful (because she is - both inside and out). I also tell her she's smart, funny, cute, thoughtful, a hard worker, a good listener, and a wonderful sister, but not as often as I tell her that she's beautiful. This post made me really think about the words I use with her and how that may affect her perception of what's most important.

This is exactly why I hate shopping at places like Toys R Us, and yes, even Target for toys. Why are the aisles all so segregated by gender? My kid loves princesses to be sure, but she also loves playing ninja, barn, shooting her bow and arrows, building with Legos and blocks, and doing science experiments. My nephew loves his action figures and play kitchen equally. And seriously, quit it with the color thing already! My daughter's favorite color was blue until someone told her it was a "boy color". If I ever find out who that person was they'll get a piece of my mind, that's for sure.

"I hear ya. I feel ya. I know."