21 Weeks

I am now 21 weeks pregnant.  According to What to Expect, my baby is now the size of a banana.  I’m not sure what grocery store What to Expect shops in, but wasn’t my baby the size of a cantaloupe last week?  Aren’t cantaloupes bigger than bananas?  Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter that much – just knowing that it’s getting bigger is enough.

Aaron and I spent the majority of the day on Sunday getting one step closer to being ready for baby.  We picked up a bunch of hand-me-down baby gear.  So we now have a stroller, baby swing, and a really cool, sci-fi looking vibrating chair.  We are so fortunate to have such generous friends! 

Our haul.

From left to right: Stroller base, behind that (and barely visible) is a Moses basket, next to that is a Mamaroo (aka sci-fi vibrating chair), car seat, swing seat, diaper box full of books underneath a bumble seat (aka chair you can plop an infant in).  Inside the duffel bag is a bassinet.  The circular looking thing next to it is the car seat base.

Here is the stroller, the Orbit G2.

This stroller is one of those systems that has the car seat/carrier and a car seat base.  It is a lot easier to fold/unfold than the ones we were messing with at Babies R Us.  You can fold it up using one hand, which will be very useful.  The seat latches on to a circular base, so we can rotate the seat to face whatever direction is best.  For example, if we want to turn the baby to face us as we are walking, we can do that.  Then if we go to a restaurant and there is only room to have the stroller face in an awkward direction, we can rotate the seat so that it is not awkward.  Also, the circular base will supposedly make it easier for loading the seat into the car as a car seat because you can plop it in at any angle and then rotate it.  The one downside to hand me downs is that you have to work within the brand you are given.  We will need two car seat bases, and buying an additional base for the Orbit is expensive!  So I think we might still register for a jogger stroller system so then we have an additional stroller and car seat.  And besides, then we could just keep one stroller in each car.

I also wanted to show off the cool sci-fi vibrating chair.  

This is called a Mamaroo.  Basically, it’s a vibrating chair that has a bunch of different settings.  One setting is supposed to mimic a car ride, another a swing, another an ocean wave, etc.  You can also hook your ipod up to it and play whatever music you want.  From everything I’ve read, some kids really take to it, and others not so much.  It will be interesting to see what our kid likes/doesn’t like.