Baby to-do list

I've revised, lengthened, crossed out, and otherwise obsessed over this to-do list for a month. Next best thing to doing anything on it seems to be blogging about it!

To do:
Get down and sort baby clothes -- DONE!
Get down bouncy seat from attic
Collect birth supplies into one place
Prepare food for freezer [already partly done. At the advice of my midwife, I now put half of every "big bake" in the freezer instead of eating the entire batch at once. I cannot believe I didn't think of this on my own]
Write birth plan
Find my Moby Wrap
Go on a date, in part so Marko can get used to the babysitter
Find a doctor who will actually treat me
Make homemade "laborade"
Install carseat
Set up sidecar crib (?)

Purchase the following things:

Infant car seat -- since Marko's got a convertible seat, I'm thinking we'll get an infant seat this time. By the time the new baby is ready to forward-face, Marko should be in a booster. I don't care much about the brand, since all the major brands seem to be quite safe and pretty much the same. But it must be new -- it is not recommended to buy used car seats.

NoseFrida nasal aspirator -- I will never forget that awful stuffy nose Marko had at a week old, how he could barely breathe or nurse or sleep, and what a battle it was to try to suction his nose while he was screaming. The bulb aspirators don't do a thing. I finally got a NoseFrida and it was like a miracle. That thing WORKS. And then Marko took it apart and lost all the pieces. So we need a new one.

Diaper covers -- about two of these and two of these

Snappis -- because I can't stand pins and was astounded to find someone had come up with a workable alternative

Birth kit (from the midwife) and the following birth supplies from the midwife's list:

Plastic sheet to cover the bed at the birth
12 washcloths (bet I can get these at the dollar store, right?)
Hydrogen peroxide

New bed for Marko -- Marko is currently still sleeping on the crib mattress. So in order to get the crib set up, we need to get him a new bed. BUT, a new bed is kind of expensive and money's a little tight right now. So, perhaps I should wait until the baby really needs the crib -- we will be cosleeping at first, right? The thing is that a sidecar crib solves the three problems of cosleeping for me: 1. I don't have to worry about the baby rolling out of bed, because the crib's right there. 2. I don't feel claustrophobic, because I can scootch the baby into its own space. 3. I don't have to worry that the baby will never get used to sleeping in a crib. I spent two months carefully teaching Marko to sleep in his Moses basket. And he did great! For one month. And then he outgrew it. He never, ever slept as well in the crib as he had in that basket.

Soooooo, I'm on the lookout for a good alternative for a bed for Marko. Just a mattress is really all that I need. Preferably a thinnish foam mattress, which is what the crib mattress is, so he isn't too high off the ground. They have them at IKEA for $99, but even that's a little much just now, what with the other stuff on this list. Perhaps Craigslist or Freecycle will have something for me.


This doesn't count non-baby-related things I would like to do (finish preparing garden beds! plant peas!) or non-baby-related things I would like to buy (new shoes for Marko! birthday presents! tomato stakes!). But it's enough to keep me busy for the time being, I think.

In other news, wish us luck! We're getting an ultrasound tomorrow. I won't be revealing the gender on here, though ... so those of you whom I don't tell personally (that is, if baby doesn't have his/her legs crossed) will get to be surprised in eight weeks or so.