Pampering Diaper Divas

In yesterday’s post I wrote about being overwhelmed with too many choices while shopping for baby paraphernalia at a specialty store in Glendale. Who knew there had been so many leaps and bounds in toddler technology since my own kids were certified curtain climbers a couple of decades ago – give or take a gray hair or two?

For example, when our daughter (for who’s baby shower my wife and I were gift shopping when we were in the mega-baby-stuff store) was herself a mini-person way back in the early 80s, we were thrilled with the brand spanking new technology available in strollers – an ingenious design breakthrough popularly called the “umbrella stroller.” It was so-called because these instantly popular umbrellas with a curved handle could be folded up into a skinny bundle that easily fit into almost any car trunk. When collapsed for storage, they looked very much like an umbrella. Hence the name. Clever, right?

These innovations in stroller technology held a squirming baby securely, were blessedly lightweight (compared to all the other Sherman tank-like strollers available at the time) and they featured something even macho dads loved – dual wheels on all four corners. Oh yeah, suddenly Dad could look semi-cool pushing a stroller.

And so it began. New parents or those shopping to buy baby stuff for new parents had a choice in strollers – traditional clunky kludge, or sleek and modern umbrella stroller. Flash forward to today and the choice in strollers can make anyone prone to indecision sit in a corner and blubber. Today’s strollers aren’t just strollers. No way, now they’re “systems” that can include (but are not limited to) features like removable seating pods that convert from stroller to car seat with the flip of just 97 levers and catches. When fully ensconced inside these wheeled wonders of engineering and ingenuity, a child can be protected from the elements from above, front, back and both sides. Standard features include cup holders – a fact that gets under my skin since most of the strollers I saw had more flippin’ cup holders than my car.  

Where was I? Oh, right. Features. The seating/pod/whatever can be turned to face either forward or backward, there are protective front bumpers available, as well as places for mommy to place her wireless phone and/or MP3 player. (Not that any self-respecting parent would ever do anything to distract him or herself from the responsibility of taking care of a young child. Never.) I saw strollers with all-wheel suspension and something called a “centralized brake cable” on the rear wheels. There were even units with (I’m not kidding) integrated side impact protection. Again, not that I’m envious or anything, but none of my own cars have that integrated side impact protection, for crying out loud! I wonder how long until voice-activated GPS systems are included in the contraptions?

Of course, I’ve only begun to describe the basic strollers available today. Once you determine the “need” for a specialized jogging or all-terrain stroller, you’ve opened up a whole new world of specifications and features. And cost.

Get the idea? Now apply this same depth and breadth of available models and features to other categories like diaper bags (dad-specific, haute-couture, multi-function, camouflage, skull & crossbones, pro sports or college team-themed, backpack style vs. over-the-shoulder, etc.), baby room furniture, bathing accessories, child proofing/safety items, cleaning products, baby monitors, potty training, crib toys, bouncers, rattles and teethers, bedding, and on and on and on.

How crazy has it gotten? I’ll sum up by simply telling you that it’s possible today to buy designer-made holsters for pacifiers. And leashes for pacifiers. And pacifiers with nipples sized by the silly millimeter to more closely match mommy’s own. Seriously. Even practical products like baby wipes have not escaped the marketing magic of today’s multi-billion dollar baby industry. While shopping, I saw an entire shelf dedicated to – hold on to your debit cards – baby wipe warming units. I wanted to cry – like a (you guessed it) baby.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is an updated version of a column first published in the CV Weekly newspaper (www.cvweekly.com) on June 10, 2010.

This version: © 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Oh Baby, How Things Have Changed

Our daughter and son-in-law had their first baby, a beautiful girl, a little less than a year ago. Although she was my wife’s and my fourth grandchild, she is the first to live within an easy drive from us. Our other three grand-munchkins live heart-wrenchingly far away in Hawaii. My dear wife and I are not extreme swimmers, we don’t own a boat or have stock in an airline, so that means we get to visit the grandkids in Hawaii far less often than we would like – an understatement if ever there was one.

Suffice it to say that our newest grandchild has so far had no shortage of time or attention lavished upon her cuddly little self. In fact, the fun had already begun with the pre-birth celebration of a baby shower that was thrown last year for our daughter and her soon-to-arrive child.

Now, I was told that it’s bad form to show up for a baby shower without a large gift in hand (apparently providing chicken salad, croissant sandwiches, a big honkin’ fresh fruit platter and homemade gourmet cupcakes wasn’t enough!) So that’s how my dear wife and I found ourselves a few days before the shower wandering the aisles of a super-baby-warehouse store in the Los Feliz area of Glendale, California.

I have to tell you, the visit to the store was an eye opener. Granted, it’s been quite a while since my kids were babies (there’s a joke here, but my kids swear they read this column at least occasionally so I’ll refrain), but I simply wasn’t prepared for what I saw wandering the aisles of this store. I mean, I remember that when there were only a few basics one had to have as a new parent. You needed a crib, possibly a bassinette to have near your own bed when you first brought the baby home, a relative gave you a hand-me-down dresser for the baby’s clothes, and you got a big spongy pad thing that you put in the kitchen sink and laid the baby on to bath it. If you really wanted to equip a baby’s room, you got one of those rickety changing tables with the cheapo foam pad on top and a shelf for thousands of diapers underneath.

New parents also needed half a dozen or so baby bottles, a couple of pacifiers, a stroller and a car seat. That’s pretty much it, unless you truly wanted to spoil a kid with one of those swings guaranteed to put even the most colicky kid to sleep in minutes. (But seriously, weren’t those blessed wind-up-baby-sitters invented for parents more than babies?) Oh, and you absolutely, positively needed a diaper pail of some kind. A big, easy-to-empty diaper pail to contain all the little neutron stink bomb bundles of joy, each with the power to instantly bring a fully grown, testosterone-soaked man to his knees begging for mercy and fresh air.

By the time our fourth child was born, the list of have-to-haves had grown to include a portable play pen (you know, the kind that never, ever fold back up as neatly and compactly as when you first take it out of the box). You also needed some sort of electronic baby monitor to eavesdrop on your spouse as they wrongfully whined to the baby about what a slacker you were for not getting up at 3 a.m. to check on him/her even though you did it already at 1:30 and your wife slept soundly through the entire incident and you didn’t get any “what-a-good-dad” credit like you deserved. Not that this happened to me. Much.

Anyway, that’s the sort of equipment we needed twenty or so years ago in order to bring up baby. Apparently, today’s babies need a whole lot more stuff. So much more, in fact, that I’ll need another post to discuss the catalog of goodies it apparently takes to be a parent in 2010. Hang on to your wallet, and check tomorrow’s My Thoughts Exactly post. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is an updated version of a column first published in the CV Weekly newspaper (www.cvweekly.com) on June 3, 2010.

This version: © 2011 WordChaser, Inc.