Love it and I think Wood and I would get along. Also .00027% improvement during the colicky phases would have led me to spend thousands of dollars on gadgets. As it was he hated everything... the swing, the sling, the jumperoo... ugh. Thank goodness we had the good sense (cheap gene) to borrow all of those items.
Hilarious! Once again, you are right on the money:
"...all newborn babies really need is boobs. Everything else is just marketing."
Now I'm off to figure out how to apply the Sacajawea Theory to my teenager...
My standard reply to my tightwad husband is usually "it was on sale".
We all need something from mini-boden.
.00027% more sleep sounds like something I could get behind, especially when it's an improvement over none at all.
I read my husband your theory and his grin could not have been bigger...
He's never had a title for his baby raisin' theories before!
"Product of the Netherlands"
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Our midwife told us that couples conceive because they wanted a baby and what they get is a pregnancy; if she had been more honest, she'd have also mentioned that they wanted one of those fat smiling accessory-enhanced babies. Let's storm the complex and replace those images with ones like this.
Thanks for the morning laugh!! You were spot on!! 
Love the box!
We have fought the good fight as best we can. What challenges us is when people just GIVE us the sh*t. Then we're all Mueller Family Motto: "If it's for free, it's for me." Or, "If it's for free, I'll take three."
Uh, but how much for the Urchin Rearin' Kit? Because if everybody's getting 'em, then I need one too.
I have about 37 of those urchin rearin' kits in our basement. that's where my wife throws the empty cardboard boxes from all her mail order adventures.
Hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.
I can totally see my husband adhering to this theory when we have children. I have to share this with him! Thanks for the laugh today!!
Gee, only 37? There are soooo many more slings yet to try then! Besides, rejoice, you're still going to save money. Just hang on to all those boxes, and no funeral director is ever going to, uh, "stiff" your family over some fancy schmancy coffin. A good box and a shovel is all you'll ever need.
Spot on, and wicked funny! I'm with you, Dutch. I rolled my eyes when those wipe warmers came out. How about some nice warm, soapy water and a wash cloth? Those chemical soaked, pre-warmed wipes just lead to trouble, and before you know it, you must invest $20 for a tube of butt paste!
With #4 coming up for us, I'd love a sling recommendation from Wood. I've never tried one before, but I'd like to. And I only want to have to buy ONE, so the advice of a pro would be awesome. I'm pretty short, and short-waisted if that makes any difference. With huge boobs. Heh. Seriously, though, I'm worried about there being room for Chester (fake fetus name) between my boobs and my waist!
What do you recommend, Wood?
But. . .but. . .but. MINI BODEN! C'mon! No one can resist THAT!
Great post. I'm sending this to my husband because he's you and I'm Wood. Totally.
Love the box. You are sofa king funny.
I'm dying! You and my husband would make a great pair. His idea was that our son would sleep in the bottom drawer of my dresser. I was able to talk him into a co-sleeper, though. Thank God. Target is always able to fleece me for $100 over what I had planned to buy, too.
great term. "I'm into Sacajawean Parenting."
Ha! That box is cracking me up.
We're trying for our first, and the idea of all the CRAP that will [hopefully] soon inundate our house has me woozy. But seeing as how I don't know anything about babies, I will be the first jackass to get tricked into buying an automatic warming anti-bacterial machine-washable baby burping machine, or some crazy shit like that.
OMG. I had to finally delurk to comment on this one. I think you and my husband were separated at birth. Right down to bellyaching about having too many slings, the cost of cloth diapers and being from MI. Scary.
If you want to get extra authentic, you could call her what the North Dakotans do: Sakakawea. And I'm not just saying that because your theory is full of caca.
I'm totally with you.
When I was pregnant with my first, I freaked out to my mom about having purchased nothing for the baby ans she gave me this wisdom: "babies need to be fed and kept clean and warm. That's it."
Most of the gear we had with the first was gifted. We bought almost nothing for this second child. Like your wife, though, you can never have enough pretty carriers.
I also get sucked into the Target vortex. I go in for lotion and come out with a new wardrobe.
OMG, love this. I am actually going to have my HUSBAND read this entry, as he would wholeheartedly agree, LOL. Too funny - I'm a "stuff" person by nature though my rational mind always loathes the clutter in the end - and so I am also a 'donator' as well. This irks my DH to know end because, you know, why waste on the buying then, in the first place. The babes really only need necessities. It's that whole 'give them a gift and watch them care less about the present but adore the box it came in theory.' Funny post - more photos of the littles ones soon, please!
btw- Are you a Parenthacker? I'm forwarding your link to Asha. They need a term like the "Sacajawea Theory". It defines most Parent hacks well.
http://www.parenthacks.com/
Love it. I love my mind-bogglingly expensive cloth diapers. They really are fantastic.
Not I think I have to go check out the mini-boden website...it's been about 3 days since I got their last catalog.
Yes, but how do you stop the flood of useless shit from grandparents? My mom is the one buying wipe warmers, gewgaws, gadgets, and of course, 10,000 crappy clunky noisemaking plastic toys. My house looks like a Chuck E. Cheese's warehouse.
If only I'd known about the theory earlier, it would have saved me a fortune.
Thank you so much for the afternoon laugh.
A sling recommendation would be wonderful. Baby number 1 due in July.
"Gymini Super Deluxe Light and Music" or the "Safety 1st Comfy Bath Center." Who names these things? They sound like the kinds of places Hong Kong businessmen go to unwind after long days of being Hong Kong businessmen.
That made me laugh. I'm Chinese and I'm always laughing at some of the names that Chinese people come up with regarding their businesses, specifically restaurants.
But mini Boden is sooo cute!
We have no children but it is so hard to resist buying everything from the catalogs when they arrive...you know, to stock pile for the day when we actually do have a child to clothe.
Wow, that hit home, my due date is in 2 weeks and I too need to tell the UPS man to try to get here before my husband gets home from work! This is baby #2 for us as well. I never thought about the cloth diapers saving us more money at Target, but you brought up a very valid point. I can't leave that place without spending less than $100. We are doing cloth diapers as well this time and would love any suggestions on what you guys find is working well for you.
"all newborn babies really need is boobs. Everything else is just marketing."
Please put that on t-shirts and sell them. I will be your first customer.
Man, I didn't realize just how much crap people came to think was essential for their baby until a few years ago when my cousin had twins. They would travel four hours to grandma's house with basically every piece of baby equipment they had, including the wipe warmer and their "second spare" diaper genie. And the high chairs. All because the ones that my aunt had picked up at a yard sale to keep in her home for the grandkids were "death traps circa 1995". The back of their van looked like they'd robbed a Babies-R-Us.
On a completely different note, as a female who is both a cheapskate and a trendwhore, I can't tell you how painful it is to be so conflicted on a daily basis. Trips to Target make me look like I have some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder. I pick things up, I put them back. I change my mind on something and circle back to the previous aisle and dump the shit on the shelf. I have even gotten cold feet about my indulgent purchases while checking out. It's embarrassing.
As for online shopping, I'm pretty powerless. All bets are off because there is always a sale somewhere. I troll J.Crew daily and I'm addicted to Etsy. Basically, if we can refine your theory for adult purposes (although I guess there are some adult males out there who think they really only need boobs?), I am clearly in need of some SBT - Sacajawea Behavioral Therapy.
PS - I don't have a kid, but I will buy an Urchin-Rearin' Kit for the right price... it's straight from the Netherlands!
... in hindsight, thus sort of negating the whole point of your post. I, too, apparently lack the gene. Team Wood.
that sacajawea theory (from the man with no boobs) sounds suspiciously like my grandma's "in my day, we didn't have carseats or seatbelts or outlet protectors and you all turned out just fine"...hmmm...i agree you can have too much stuff for any person, but jeez, man, no dresser?
and for the record, i love my travel system, 2.5 years into having it. best gift we ever received for the pnut. after the swing. so pbtht.
You are spot on, except for the holy slings and wraps. How do you think Sacajawea kept her baby happy and her hands free for all that ass-whooping she did on the frontier? Slings and wraps!
I am partial to these slings:
http://www.kangarookorner.com/
(I like the adjustable fleece pouch, it's cold here right now. Might not be good for warmer places.)
and
http://www.mobywrap.com/c-15-mob...-moby-
wrap.aspx
(looks complicated, but it's not really.)
ha, I love the box! I'm sure Sacajawea had at least one sling, she didn't give birth to a little koala who could cling to her fur (OR DID SHE). a minuscule point: it was LEWis and Clark. sorry, my elementary school was named after him
So true and funny at the same time!
I am very pleased to recently re-discover you're blog from an old bookmark, on an even older laptop. I should inform you though the "Sacajawea" philosophy has been alive and well, at least in spirit. For my family it was the Russian Cossack analogy of these hardy women who continue to plow the fields while in the throws of labor only to bare their child, sling it on their breast and go back to plowing.... My father who incidentally was an OBGYN, would always assuage his patients fears of motherhood by telling them " you come with everything necessary to care for you're child...you know Cossack women use to.... However, one cannot hardly blame parents for indulging in all the cleverly marketed "must have" items. After all, they are preying on you're very instinctive desire to nurture and be a good parent.....clever bastards!
I love slings! I occasionally wear a sling! I just don't think Sacajawea would have had several dozen of them.
I can laugh at this only because my "baby" is now 17. Sacajawea!...hilarious.
OH, I know you didn't just knock the wipe warmer. They are perfect for drafty houses and parents who keep it at 62 at night. 62 and wet is COLD.
LONG LIVE THE WIPE WARMER.
Mmm, curmudgeons. My favourite. I buy them on two-fer Thursdays and sprinkle them on toast. YUM.
Need sleep. Feeling punchy. Can only think clearly about just how great the two.. err, three.. err, FOUR of you are.
I live in Hong Kong right now, and I swear I just saw the sign for "Safety 1st Comfy Bath Centre" a few days ago.
while i did not fall for the wipe warmer, i've got a metastasizing pile of barely-used crap in the basement, just waiting for cheapskate redistribution via yard sale.
should i have a second child, i might be interested in your urchin-rearin kit, or , rather, for any leftover cardboard boxes you might have. i think it would make a dandy playspace for bebe numero dos. the firstborn gets vintage cropped baggies ($34, but i had a coupon code) and a swing cardigan ($42, but i had a coupon code). second-born gets a nest made of shredded mini boden catalogs.
as soon as i published that comment i just published, i thought about my grandma -- who had her first kid when she was 15, and went on to have 7 more -- dealt with her wee one when she had to do housework: she would put the baby in a cardboard box and drag it around with her as she dusted and swept and whatever.
to the best of my knowledge, she dealt with the older -- by which i mean ambulatory -- children by sending them out into the fields to pick cotton. i do not know what she did with the babies when she, herself, was out picking cotton, but i'm kind of imagining an unsupervised cardboard box, or a cardboard box monitored by a 6-year-old. in any case, i am entirely certain that she did not have a hotsling.
They actually do not let you leave Target unless you spend at least $100. If you are under, they make you go back and get more stuff.
I was sort of a cross between Sacajawea and the Mini Boden catalog.
Our changing table was this butcher block thing I had stolen from a previous apartment. We had no dresser for a long time and sort of hung baby things on this hook over the door and then my mom saw our apartment and freaked out and bought us one of those build it yourself dressers which broke shortly thereafter. But we were also living in utter squalor. Sacajawea was cool at least.
Off the topic, but dude, you have a super stylin' house and I think you must confess to the delicious pleasure of being a super stylin' mid century acquirer as a skinflint. The pleasure of, e.g., the found Paul McCobb hutch borders on orgasm. But that only shows that one has taken acquisitiveness to new, more refined heights. I realize it might not be Buddhism you are going for but anti-corporatism. Still.
(This is not a criticism, by the way. I do not conceal my envy in snipey comments--I openly envy your house. I'm only saying that I secretly suspect there are some good stories on how you got the cool stuff you have and I for one would like to hear them.)
On the topic, the lack of babyproofing reminds me of a time in Guatemala when I was watching two and three year olds toddle around unwatched and unbabyproofed and commented to a friend about our Norteamericano fearfulness and the like, and look! The kids aren't dying! And she pointed out: Um, no. There are a lot of horrifying accidents in that village.
Sacajawea was kind of lucky, in other words.
I hope you kept your wipe warmer because it's great for cloth wipes.
my husband could have wrote this (except he makes music and doesn't write but I am sure he's made a rhythm about it).
since we were so broke with our first two all i could buy was slings and cloth diapers and really nothing else except the midwife fee. this time around we had a tiny bit more cash and i insisted on one of those hamoock things so i could attend to the other 2 ankle biters without wearing the baby and one of those lamb skin things, but who wouldn't want to sleep on one of those.
I love the name you picked for what our culture can't seem to get: boobs and love, boobs and love.
I would have loved to have some warm butt-wipes and something nicer than the piece of s papoose my cheap-ass mom dragged me across the godforsaken hell-hole called the West in.
Isn't it great that this "attachment parenting" thing came along and released cheapskates like me from the social stigma of being just too damn cheap to buy all that baby crap?
I'm 100% in the Boobs & Love corner.
Me 6 mo. ago (8 mo pregnant): "A wipes warmer? A WIPES warmer? There aren't possibly enough suckers out there to justify the manufacture of a WIPES WARMER."
Me two days ago, as I'm blowing on my cloth wipes to warm them up (for use with my absurdly expensive cloth diapers): "A wipes warmer! Were can I get one of those??"
There is a camping corollary to the Sacajawea Theory, via a direct quote from my army drill instructor: Ol' Clark and Lewis didn't need no gawddamned Gore-Tex sleepin' bags!
I'm so on the Sacajawea train with you.
Love love love the Urchin-Rearin' Kit. I would so much have preferred one of those to the kraampakket our Dutch health insurer sent - a real "product of the netherlands." I wasn't birthing at home, so I didn't need all the plastic sheeting and gauze bandages they sent. And we SURE as hell didn't need the racist cartoon on the box. Give me a cute pic of Juniper any day!
I am a skinflint and a serious thrifter - my 2 yr old's word for "store" is Appa Sharny, as usually the store is Salvation Army. I have purchased exactly one brand-new clothing item for my daughter in the last year, and it was a swimsuit from the Mini-Boden catalog. 10% off and free shipping, dude, come on! And the ebay resale value is ridiculous.
Whoops, I've over-stated my virture; I also bought her new socks.
i was thinking someone should set up a sling exchange- sometimes it takes 37 tries to find the sling that works for your own baby, and sometimes they change as they grow. maybe there's a better one that fits your body better than your friends, or isn't so bulky, or gets your kid closer to your boob, or keeps them content 5 minutes longer. 5 more minutes of baby peace to a sleep deprived mama is like 5 days at a spa sometimes.
for example, so many folks i know love the moby wrap, so i rec'd to a friend, and her baby just doesn't seem to enjoy it at all. there's 40 bucks down the drain and i feel like a jerk for rec'ing it to her. my kid hated her carrier-thing- hated it, screamed worse in it than out of it. sometimes you just want to find the thing that works, w/o having to buy 37 options first.
busted by the UPS man, bummer
love the sacajawea method.
now how can you market it???
resale value of the absurdly expensive cloth diapers is pretty high--like 75% of cost of new, so no complainin'!
PS I bought lots of nice condition used cloth diapers on diaperswappers.com--so I know how much you love a bargain, and the computer, so check it out!
Brilliant box - you're a whiz!
i love your theory and practice it myself, much to my husband's annoyance. i am a minimalist. i dreaded registering at the babystore. i had to be talked into getting a stroller, which turned into a blessing in disguise otherwise the dog would never get walked.
Bossy doesn't go in for this particular type of packaged happiness. Too many primary colors.
Loved the post. There are pictures of my dad, raised on a farm, at about 2 tied to a fence with a length of rope through his belt loops so he wouldn't wander away. That's what I call babyproofing!
Wow..what a great post. Boobs...who would have guessed
I am ashamed to say it, but I LOVE the baby industrial complex.
Amen! Boobs, a car seat, something to put on their tushies and a safe place to sleep. Nothing else.
We're living this theory to the core. My MIL did buy us a crib with my first and it sure has been fun for my kids to play in. We scored with number three, she ACTUALLY SLEEPS in there! I must say, though, I am a sucker for toys. If it's wooden, fantasy related, and handmade, I'm all over it. I love watching my kids create the back stories for their "new friends." So, Dutch, get to whittling...
Slingaholic: I love it!
do you get paid for the toysRus links?
Profligatory Gaelic..? Buh? What happened to the notorious and hard-earned stereotype of the tight-fisted, miserly Scot?
Hearty congratulations on your new son/brother! What a fabulous name you gave him. I'm a constant lurker on your blog and love reading all your stories. I recently had a baby and also had to listen to my husband bitch about all the baby crap, especially all the BPA-free bottles.
Oh come on now....there's ALWAYS a need for something from the Mini Boden catalog. My husband just cringes when he see's that blue package at the door....it means another $200 has slipped through his fingers and onto the backs of his lovely children. If he had it his way, they'd get all their clothes from Target. I LOVE Target, and a portion of their clothes DO come from Target (aka: my happy place) but the Boden stuff is irrisistable. I just can't say no to the stuff.
snort- I love it!
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