Our incredible shrinking house

It's amazing how much supporting infrastructure a baby needs. There's the essential contents of a baby's room such as a bassinet, crib, change table, bookshelves and chest of drawers. There's also the essential straight-backed chair and footstool (what I have instead of a rocking chair) for nursing and expressing milk. Oh, must not forget the car seat, strollers and diaper bags. And then there's the stuffed animals and other toys. We have two stroller bases (one large with inflatable tires, the other smaller for ease of fitting into the trunk) and within the next four months or so will probably also have an umbrella stroller.

Thanks to the generosity of friends, we also have other baby equipment that we will need a little later to amuse the boy such as the exersaucer, jolly jumper, and a playpen. Our house was small before but it's even smaller now with all this stuff. I can see why people need a bigger house as soon as the baby comes. Baby himself seems to occupy maybe a cubic foot of volume, but his accessories and technology is closer to ... ... 1 billion cubic feet! (said in Dr. Evil voice)

Then there's stuff one actually needs to wrap, wipe and warm up baby including clothes, spit-up rags, receiving blankets and towels. When I was unpacking the stuff Joan gave me, I said "how many blankets does a baby need." The answer is apparently, more than I think, since not only do I need all the blankets Joan gave me, we've actually had to purchase more. Dexter's chest of drawers is full and tomorrow, Jon is installing additional shelves in the closet for storage. Then there's the diapers. Dexter goes through about eight to 10 of them a day so we need to lay in a supply of the stuff. And of course, all these blankets and sleepers for baby eventually get dirty which means laundry...sigh...the topic of yet another post.