Baby Shopping in Seattle

I wrote a couple of days ago about our trip to Seattle, and it says a lot about me that my top priority was to write about the great vegan restaurant we went to, Pizza Pi, and not about the main purpose of the trip: baby shopping.

I got an equal helping of my mother’s joy of shopping and my father’s joy of frugality, so I’ll admit that I’m a little difficult to shop with. I tend not to buy anything unless it’s used or on sale, and I’ll tend to buy the 20% off $100 item over the full price $5 item (it may go on sale soon…). Ashley and I have very different styles of shopping, too: I decide pretty quickly on a purchase, where Ashley tends to think about things a bit more (what’s there to think about if it’s 20% off, right?). This trip was a lot of fun, though, and we were able to get a lot of things that we’ve been needing and couldn’t find in Yakima.

Edie has been nibbling on solid foods for a couple of months now, and it’s been more than evident in her diapers, so we finally picked up a bumGenius Diaper Sprayer. It hooks into the water line that supplies the toilet, and it was really easy to install, although I did have to mop up about a quarter cup of water from the back of the toilet tank. The only issue we’ve run into so far is that our changing pad is set up in Edie’s room/Ashley’s office, which means our poopy diaper routine goes like this:

1. Strap Edie in
2. Take the diaper to the bathroom, spray it off, and try to fold it in such a way that it won’t drip
3. Take it back to the room and say something to try and amuse Edie
4. Go back into the bathroom and wash hands
5. Run back to the room where Edie is most likely getting board
6. Put on a new diaper with a now thoroughly unamused Edie

Anyway, I think it’s just logistics we need to get figured out. We talked about moving the diaper pail into the bathroom, but that makes it inconvenient for the 80% of diapers that don’t require spraying.

Looking towards the days when we won’t have to think of such things, we also picked up a Little Potty from BabyBjörn. It’s cute, little and Edie definitely likes sitting on it. Before she was born, Ashley and I talked about trying elimination communication with Edie, but I’ve only given it a half-hearted attempt on our toilet a few times. Edie gets pretty board just sitting with me holding her over the toilet, but she’s already used her Little Potty a couple of times because she can sit on her own and play with things. I think it will help me get more familiar with her rhythms and maybe make a little headway towards potty training myself 🙂

By far our biggest and most fun scores came from Sugarlump, an awesome new and consignment kid’s shop. We’ve been to a few other stores that sell specifically used kids clothes, and even found a bunch of cute clothes at a store while we were visiting my folk’s in Texas. But judging by the clothes we found at Sugarlump, nobody dresses their kids cuter than Seattleites.

This sounds kind of lame as I talk it out in my head, but the whole experience of baby shopping in Seattle made both Ashley and me crave living in a place with other like-minded parents. It would be so nice to be able to find even cloth diapers in Yakima. But for now, we always look forward to trips to Seattle, Portland, or Corvallis for some good ol’ loot spending.

Edie enjoying her new booty