Warm Wipes

I will shamelessly admit that when the triplets were younger, we really only bathed them every three days. I can see the expression on your face right now as you are most likely disgusted by this. Babies really don't get that dirty. Sure they regularly spit up on themselves and sit in a couple of poopy diapers a day, but that's the purpose of the wonderful, all powerful, omnipotent (wait for it) .... Baby wipe. Oh yes, you thought they were just for cleaning up those nether regions, but baby wipes have many useful purposes. Many times I have used them in lieu of a bath. When you have a baby  who has spit up on himself for the ninth time that day, are you really going to take the time for a bath? Not unless you are crazy or bored. You just whip out the good old baby wipe and voila ... clean and fresh in no time! I have used them to clean windows, the floor, anything you can think of. I even use those unused tossed aside ones that have dried up as make-shift napkins or tissues.

Although I do love the baby wipe, I never did invest in the baby wipe warmer that all the sales people at Babies R Us insisted that I have. I just didn't see the point in warming up wipes for your baby. My first question was about the temperature on that thing. How would I know if it was too hot? I didn't want scald marks on the babies' backsides to be the way I found out. My kids already fall down and get multiple bumps and bruises the day before we go to the doctor's office, so I don't think a burned behind would help my cause in avoiding a visit from Child Services. And my second question about the wipe warmer was ... why? Why do they need a warm wipe? Sure, I'll bet it feels good, but I don't get a warm wipe when I have a hard afternoon on the toilet, do I? In my opinion, they had just better get used to it now. I could just see my kids protesting down the road while in the midst of potty training that the toilet paper wasn't warm enough or something like that. The way I figure it, if it was so great, they would have figured out an adult version and we'd all be walking around with warm behinds all the time.

While I'm thinking about it, here are some other things I was told I just HAD to register for when I was pregnant that ended up being totally superfluous:

Baby Backpack
You know what I'm talking about. This is one of those huge backpack things that you can strap to your back and the kid can ride in it while you're hiking, out for the day, etc. This thing is HUGE. I don't know how I could carry it and a baby and not fall over backwards. Plus, I have no idea where I would store it. Also, anyone who wants to hike with their baby strapped onto their back is certifiably crazy. Don't you want to enjoy the hike? The money you could use to pay for the babysitter while you hike would be much less expensive that all those bills you would have for the the chiropractor once you had taken a hike with this thing strapped to your back.

Baby Walker
This is one of those contraptions that you can sit your baby in once they can stand and then they can walk around the house in it because it's on wheels. Um ... that description alone should just make you cringe in horror right away. Who wants to give an 8 month old the freedom to go wherever they want in the house? This is in addition to the fact that I am positive that my toes would be crushed multiple times as those little wheels ran over my feet over and over again. No thanks. After deciding to turn this registry item down it took me a couple months before the nightmares of the baby in the walker careening down the stairs stopped.

Any item the baby won't need before he is a year old
I'm sorry, but I just felt bad about registering for things for my babies that they wouldn't be using in that first year. They want you to register for things like potties, utensils, and booster seats for when the baby is over 35 pounds. I just felt like that was asking too much to register for things that they wouldn't be using until years in the future. I mean, I might as well have had a category on my registry where you could contribute to the babies' college educations. Babies already need so much stuff to begin with, I couldn't begin to imagine where I would store all this additional stuff that they weren't going to use for a couple of years. I think this is all a ploy concocted by the Babies R Us empire. They get people to buy you a potty for the baby when he's born, the parents store it away, everyone forgets about it, and then two years later we're off to Babies R Us again to buy another potty. Those so-called "registry consultants" at Babies R Us are a lot smarter than I thought.

I'm sorry if anyone really loved their wipe warmer or was strong enough to tote their kid around in a backpack while hiking ... I just couldn't find the reasoning behind these items on my registry. I liked the simpler things ... like the baby wipe! Too bad no one gave me those as a shower gift. I'll just have to load up on my box of 1000 next time I head to Costco!