Second in a series, check out my #parenting tag for more in the future. I hope to bring this into the physical world as a zine at some point.
I am thinking hard about being a parent all the time. We're a month-ish in to having my heart exist in two places outside my body, and it's going okay, considering.
A friend who's almost in parenthood (update: their kid came a month early! was really hoping to send it to them before they became parents hah) asked if there was anything on our registry for our first kid that we could still use and lol, no.
Here's some stuff that wasn't on our registry that gets used on the regular.
- A busted old plug-in dial radio
I do the night feeds and I do not have time to flip through playlists or whatever, and I will not allow a response robot in my home. I'm fortunate enough to have KEXP on terrestrial radio, and KBCS right next to it, both of which are great at night. If your radio situation is bad, try the KEXP app or build a Listen Later stash on Mixcloud. Let a human soundtrack your night stuff!
I have really strong memories of giving my first bottles and using my index finger to adjust the volume as I shifted around.
Hopefully this fits neatly around your wrist. Maybe it'll be your forearm. Either way, during the spit-up era, it's nice to have an clean-up cloth on your person at all times. I reach out with my wrist to sop up drool, unsnap to mop up actual spit-up.
- A "dad vest"
This is partly influenced by having an older kid, but I remember doing it with just a babe in hand/on chest. I have a big-pocketed Barbour vest that's going over everything until it's 30 degrees Celsius out. It's not neatly organized but there's a hat for the baby and hand sanitizer and a pacifier and so on, and it's nice to pat your pockets and find that stuff rather than having to slough off a backpack.
- Old toothbrushes and a lil bottle of dish soap
The only way to clean shit stains imo. I don't even think sodium percarbonate works. I snagged little bottles from our hospital stay and am fortunate enough to have a utility sink near the washing machine.
This got published in between my kids (woo, that's fun to type!) and it rips. Here it is on Bookfinder, but if you can't spring for it, request it at your library. Ideally you won't need it for too long. Best and least preachy book out for the thing that dominates your thoughts.
The book that my parents used to raise me. Cue "and I turned out okay!!" No but for real, this is by Penelope Leach and her style is so reassuring and while ymmv, she's been right - eerily so - at every developmental stage for a now 2-year-old.
Five bucks on eBay for a 2010s copy.
Biting my lip a little bit as I recommend this because it almost died in 2022 - this is a longstanding private photo share app, that, critically, isn't app-only. My kid's great-grandparents aren't smartphone users but can handle getting email updates/looking at pictures on the desktop.
I ordered an overpriced photo book to show support.
Keeping track of time is so fucking hard in the fourth trimester. When was the last feed? How long has she been asleep? Have I been burping her for 15 minutes by accident?
Long press on this one. Free version works a treat.
- Instant oatmeal packets
There's healthy versions of these now. An affront to my sensibilities. We get the big
Quaker box from Costco. Being able to make something sustaining in a mug rocks. I try to mix in a bunch of chopped fruit and maca powder and grass-fed butter to balance the added sugar of it all.
- Pump lotion in every room
I have eczema and I've never had more of it on my hands than last year and this year with all the dishwashing and hand sanitizing and so on. Completing a long, slow comeback to smoothness by not having to leave any room to moisturize.
Postcard by me. No idea when I made it, in the file is from 2018.
