What goes around comes around

It is amazing the material stuff that a parent accumulates of completely necessary baby stuff. I view myself as belonging to the category of 'minimalist moms' (although some people do it way better than I) and I have only ever had two pram/strollers (=baby vehicles), two carriers (one which I still use), two car seats (one for the nanny, one for us) and Zoe still has very few toys since we live small and she has plenty opportunity to play with other toys in daycare and playgroups I take her to. Yet, for some reason all these things are used, then discarded because a baby grows into a toddler and suddenly the legs are too long for the stroller and the head sticks out the top of the infant car seat (yep, I tried to squeeze her in when she was still under the weight limit but too tall, since she is "tall and skinny" on the charts). And in other cases we moved and shipped 90% of Zoe's toys not realizing that she would like things to play with during the 6 months while we waited for it. So we bought double (remember the cup-holder problem?).

So for the longest time I had wanted to sell or pass on many old things that are just taking up storage space, things that another baby, somewhere, could have great use of. Today was the day. I meticulously wrote well-phrased ads for Blocket, Sweden's version of craigslist, checked the Swedish again and again on google translate and paid the fees. I woke up to several emails with interested people and managed to get all four people to show up this afternoon. I was not only proud of my own accomplishment in terms of communication and coordination, I was also amazed of how easy it was and how many people were interested in my 2 year old no-name pram that Zoe had for her first 4 months. I guess I listed it too cheap. The other things also sold easily, I think because they were brand name items.

One of the things Sweden is amazing about is second hand stuff, particularly high quality items. Nothing is cheap here, you can find more affordable things but a real stroller is still 700$ and up and if you want to be hip with the hipster moms on Södermalm, you need a Bugaboo or an Emmaljunga pram with your color matching child dressed in Molo or Marimekko. I was fairly brand name savvy before I became a mom and I still am a firm believer in quality which comes with particular brands so Zoe is often found in Petit Bateau, Noa Noa, Polarn & Pyret (lovely Swedish kids clothes) and of course Molo. But as I looked at her today I also became proud of my ability to budget: her Molo t-shirt was bought from the UK mail-order on sale together with the Petit Bateau undershirt; her Wheat pants were hand-me-downs from my girlfriend whose daughter is 7 years older than Zoe. Finally, her Molo rain boots (that she wears every single day, rain or sunshine) were a present from my mom since her old ones had so many holes in them that... well let me just say the normal functionality of rain boots was non-existent. The high quality of clothes here, both in terms of material and design, as well as durability, gives me a sense of responsibility to also pass things on and I have so far managed to sell 15+ items on Tradera, Sweden's eBay (see my current ads).

So today was big cleaning out day. What I had not predicted was Zoe's still very present attachment to all the things. She spent 45 minutes playing in, around, and under her old pram, crawling into it and putting her doll into it. I explained that a nice little baby (named Jessica), who did not have a pram of her own, needed it and that we were passing it on to her, but Zoe still cried her eyes out when they rolled it away. The infant carseat went a bit more easily although the mom hadn't brought the baby, but perhaps Zoe had realized at this point that she really didn't fit in there anymore after eagerly attempting and falling out a couple of times. At one point between the Brio trolley and her pram I broke down and promised that we buy her a doll pram. As a minimalist mom, we don't have one at home despite Zoe loving them when at a playgroup or visiting others kids who do. I regretted immediately because I knew it was a "bad mommy moment" and hope she doesn't remember tomorrow. At least she finally stopped crying and we went over to buy a footstool (second hand) for her so she doesn't have to climb up on the bathroom bin to reach the sink. I might be minimalist but this is one item I should have bought long time ago, before she broke the lid off the waste bin.

Sleep tight, don't let the floor boards bite

"We are not bringing the pack and play", Mark told me two days before we were leaving for our 5 day adventure in and around San Francisco. I agreed that it might be a bit excessive since we only really would use it for one night at my aunts' place. The other nights would be at hotels with cribs and at our friends' house where I was sure they had some kind of vessel for sleeping babies since they had two of their own. I managed to pack a small suitcase with Zoe's and my clothes including two extra pairs of shoes and small packets of oatmeal for Zoe's breakfast. Packing light has always been one of my strengths and I take pride in it.

It turns out that buying some contraption for tying a car seat to a suitcase for easy rolling around or simply buying a cover the car seat for checking in, is completely unnecessary if you have a luggage strap and a suitcase with a straps on the outer pocket for hanging bags on the outside of your rolling suitcase. I was able to just strap the car seat onto the suitcase for easy rolling around. At the airport we checked in the car seat and South West provided us with a plastic bag which meant the car seat made it through the journey just fine. The only mishap happened when Mark clicked the car seat to the suitcase with a twisted strap and did not support the seat with the broader luggage strap (which goes around everything, under the baby's safety belt to hold). After 20 minutes of a heavy car seat pulling in the twisted strap, walking up San Francisco's hills, the strap broke off and the car seat fell off. It was possible to strap it on with just the lose luggage strap though and we managed with that for the rest of the trip.

We also managed just fine without the travel crib, except for the last night. At my aunt's I put Zoe to sleep on the middle of the low guest bed and we went to sleep early anyway. She did wake me up a couple of times with a foot in my eye or an arm on my ear but overall we slept fine. The final night at our friends' house, it turned out that they only had a baby crib, not high enough for a toddler. Instead I put her to sleep on the sofa bed upstairs in the guest room and went downstairs to rejoin everyone for desert. I knew I would be able to hear her if she woke up, which she still occasionally does at night. After about an hour we all heard a cry and I rushed up so she wouldn't get scared that we weren't there. I went in but couldn't see her on the bed. I looked around but couldn't see much in the dark. "Zoe, Zoe, where are you?" I called out and started panicking slightly. Had she walked out? But the door was closed. Could she have fallen out the window? I brushed the wall up and down to find the light switch and finally found it. I walked over and looked at the other side of the sofa bed and there she lay, with her little duvet still around her, on the floor, snoozing. She must have had fallen down and cried, but then fallen asleep again. I sighed from relief but immediately felt the mommy guilt rushing in. How could I have just left her to roll down? I scooped her up and made several 'bumpers' with blankets around the bed. She slept through all the commotion and in the end I lay down next to her for some snuggles. "I'm so sorry sweetie I whispered" and stroked her hair.