Double Strollers
 

Take turns doing grocery shopping after the kids are down. Even with only one, we do that quite a bit. We also have organic produce and milk delivered.

tm

Double Strollers
 

Mr. Lex is not permitted to go to the grocery store unsupervised unless I am desperate (admittedly, this will soon be more often than now), so this translates into "have your mom over more often." That works too.

I saw a woman at Kroger the other day with 4 kids - approx ages 5, 4, 3, 2. That takes strength. Or a couple of strong drinks before leaving the house.

Double Strollers
 

If you can't have the infant in anything smaller than the entire bucket (on the back?), either hire a babysitter one afternoon a week for errand-running or make it a family event to go to the store.

Double Strollers
 

Hmmm, I also am not allowed to go the grocery store. I've never really asked why because I don't mind being banned from shopping.

Regarding shopping with a toddler and a baby, I suggest using one of those shopping carts that looks like a car: two seats in front of a normal looking shopping cart (very popular with the under-5 set).

Belt #1 into a seat in front, strap #2 in their car seat into area of the cart where kids usually sit. Sure, #1 will escape from time to time, but you still will be able to shop in short 2 minute bursts in between corralling #1 back into their seat.

Double Strollers
 

Same reason he's not permitted to go to Best Buy - he comes home with a bunch of stuff we don't need and ends up spending way too much.

We have these at our store - they seem bulky, but if they do the trick....

GKOTD.
 

Young newlyweds are new to town and looking to join a church, so they meet with the pastor. Pastor says, "We have a very strict moral code, and cannot tolerate vice. Only if you can refrain from fornicating for three weeks do you have the discipline for salvation. If you can, you are welcome in our spiritual community." Newlyweds exchange pained looks but agree to abstain.

They report back after one week. "Have you been able to avoid the temptation of sin?" "Yes, Pastor." "Come back next week, then, and in the meantime do not indulge your base bodily urges."

They report back again the second week. "Have you successfully avoided the sin of carnality?" "Well, yes, Pastor, but it's been very difficult." "Very good. Come back next week, and avoid the pleasures of the flesh until then."

Third week, they report again. "Have you succeeded in avoiding the sin of lust?" "Well, Pastor, the other day my wife dropped a can of tomatoes on the floor, and when she bent over to pick it up, I just couldn't control myself and I took her then and there."

The Pastor clucks disapprovingly. "Then I am sorry to say you're not welcome here."

"Funny thing, Pastor --- that's what they told us at Safeway, too!"

Double Strollers
 

When your kids are older (I think the minimum age is 4 - at least at the supermarket here) the food gods created an inhouse daycare center for you. Well, at least they did here at the Giant Eagle brand grocery stores. It has video games, tv, toys and even crafts to keep the kids entertained while you shop. It is a very, very good thing indeed.

aV

Combi has a side by side double that will fit through a standard doorway; is very quick and easy to break down and not super heavy. It's pretty well balanced, I can put the 5 yr. old next to the 10 mo. old and it doesn't spin; although it is very tough to steer one handed when there is a big weight differential between the passengers. With the 2 yr. old and the 10 mo. old it's no problem. I think it has considerably less mass then the Graco.

With respect to shopping; I think I recall that all Lexlings are 10+ pounds either at birth or within 5 to ten minutes; i.e. Bjorn sized at birth. Can't you put the newborn in the Bjorn; middle child in the kid seat and let oldest walk and/or hang off side of cart?

I tried the backpack once for shopping except that while I was looking at one side of the aisle, my passenger was able to reach the shelving on the opposite side and dropped a half dozen glass pickle jars from the top shelf...MMMmmm, pickle juice.

Thanks, and yes, they are rather large, but there will only be 2 in the immediate future, unless Mr. Lex has some 'fessing up to do. Yikes! - We will need to survive #2 before even considering moving on to produce #3.

Double Strollers
 

I have 2 munchkins, age 2 and 3 and I LOVE my Maclaren twin traveller - in fact it is my 3rd double and i wish i had it the day #2 was born. It fits easily through standard doorways, its easy to open and close (automatic locking), fits in the trunk of my old (read small) honda accord. I am almost 6 ft and DH is a half foot plus taller than I and is comfortable pushing it, it has the 2 handles angled inward so your shoulders don't get all out of wack too. It ain't cheap (I found it on the net for $350 with free shipping) but it has been a god-send. nice sturdy wheels for both city (has handled NYC/Boston/DC and Barcelona) and mall walking and the seats are high enough so that my long children still can't drag their feet on the ground...ruining their expensive shoes and slowing me down). It has 5 point strap and head support and duo positions in each seat so it can accommodate both newborns and toddlers (my best friend has a 2 year old and a 3 month old). Its not light - i'd say about 23lbs or so, but its definitely worth it to me. I travel with my kids a lot and I won't go anywhere without it...don't get me started on how un-child friendly airports and airlines are...grrr.....

good luck in you choice

ml

Double Strollers
 

Try the message board for the Baby Bargains book at www.babybargains.com They have a separate board for stroller discussion and probably half of the posts are regarding double strollers (and those people take strollers seriously and have probably gone through 5-8 strollers each in search of the perfect one). There are a number of strollers that are also single strollers to which you can add a toddler seat. you can probably get the pros/cons of the most highly regarded doubles which usually include:

Mountain Buggy Urban Double (this and the Valco are probably the most highly regarded)
Valco Runabout Double (or single with toddler seat)
Peg Perego Aria Twin (they have some tandems too, like the Duette)
Maclaren (I forget what it's called)
Phil & Ted's e3 (my personal fave and pretty cool looking)
BumbleRide Queen B (with a toddler seat)
Zooper Tango

Double Strollers
 

The Valco is really nice, big wheels, manuevers well, looks comfy. But it is really heavy, and my wife didn't think she wanted to lug that out of the trunk everyday. I think we got a side by side Peg Pereggo (sp) aria twin instead. Superlight, easy to fold. If I personally were using it more, I'd pick the Valco, but that's just me. I think the lighter versions are more practical day to day.

Mailboxes Etc.
 

Ugh. I need a mailbox and I'd like it to look "pretty" or elegant with no pictures of dogs and cats and the like. It seems impossible to find one, even over the internet. The ones at the big stores seem to all be those big ones that come in three colors (black, beige, copper) and weigh more than Viet Babe. I'm talking about a wall-mounted one. Ideas anyone?

(Oh, and must I really leave beer out in my garden in pie pans to intoxicate the grubs so they won't eat my dahlias?)

As usual, thanks in advance.

Mailboxes Etc.
 

Restoration Hardware and Smith & Hawken have loads that are "pretty" in the modernist sense --- clean lines. I imagine you have already considered and rejected this, but that's where I'd look first, if I were me, and I am.

http://smithandhawken.speedera.net/w...7/781070-1.jpg

http://www.smithandhawken.com/jhtml/...jhtml?CATID=47

Mailboxes Etc.
 

You mean slugs? Grubs you need poison--like Grub-X. Slugs go with beer in trays. Although i bought a trap once from a catalog. I'll try to remember which one.

Mailboxes Etc.
 

Huh. I've been getting bum advice. I definitely have Grubs (I think, that is, they are pure white, short and fat but not fat like huge or anything; they are under the soil and there's a ton of them). I got this for killing them:

http://www.bayeradvanced.com/lawn/pr.../pg_gc_rts.jpg

but it requires you to hook it up to the hose and the water mixes automatically with the stuff . But I don't want to do that b/c that is for lawn care and the grubs are only in my flower beds (plus the landscaper does his thing with the lawn). So I don't know how much water to add to it to "spot" treat the garden. It's a very small area. Which makes me realize I paid less money for the dahlias than I did for the grub killer. Damn!


As for mailboxes, Atticus you have good taste. So far, that one was in my list of 3 acceptable ones. I was hoping for something a little interesting and more ornate because the house is a cape cod and not modern.

I'm such a fussy homeowner.

Mailboxes Etc.
 

Yeah, those are grubs. Never heard about beer. What you have probably works. I used pellets--grub-x--and they seem to be gone now. Spray can work as well, but you want it in the soil. The pellets should be easy enough to apply just to the ground, and they'll soak in. They won't really disappear until next year regardless, though. I think the white things are the pupae (or whatever), that come up in the fall.

Mailboxes Etc.
 

Argh!!! Don't put those scary chemicals in your yard! For grubs/cutworms, use beneficial nematodes. They're microscopic creatures that you buy on a little sponge. You soak the sponge in water, then load the water into a pump sprayer and spray on your beds. The nematodes are bad for the cutworms but not anything else.

That reminds me, I need to pick some up this week. Time for another application. At least with nematodes (as opposed to deer repellent, rodent repellent, slug bait, neem oil, etc. etc.) I don't have to worry about our lovely early June rains washing away my handiwork.

tm

Mailboxes Etc.
 

Yeah, beer is definitely for slugs. For grubs, try an armadillo - they will eat all the grubs and then leave when the food is gone. They might dig up the flowers to get to the grubs, but the grubs will be gone.

Are the leaves being eaten or the roots? Grubs don't eat leaves - you may have something else if that is the problem. I am rather anti-chemical myself (except for Texas fire ants - they must die die die) - never had to try the nematodes, but you can order them online.


On another note, if the ultrasounds are to be believed, #2 measured ~8# at 34w and appears to be gaining almost 1#/week. Any bets on ultimate size (@38w2d via c-section, thank god!) later this month?

Double Strollers
 

Dial back to the early 1970s, and that was my mother. Always took all four of us to Kroger on Saturday, and my father never went to the store.

Of course, he did his own shopping after the divorce.

We used to go to the store together. After our first child was born, we have discovered the joys of "Peapod" by Giant -- order online, schedule a delivery time. There are other such services in various regions. The selection is not as complete as a full store, but it is workable. The prices are in the same ballpark.

P.S. to Vietmom: Beer actually works for slugs. Draws them in and kills them dead.

S_A_M

window guards
 

So, what's the take on window guards for apartments? In NYC, you're required to have them permanently fixed on all windows of apartments with little kids (other than windows opening onto a fire escape). NYC law requires that all "child guards" must be permanently fixed to the window frame and unopenable. (Brilliant!)

Our local fire house, however, recommended (off the record) that at least one window in every room should have no guards (because if there are guards they can't get in, and even the openable ones usually aren't really openable from the outside, in addition to being illegal as child guards). So per fire department advice, we would have child guards on exactly one window in our apartment, which is blocked by furniture anyway.

Combine this with the fact that trepidation kid climbs like a monkey, and several times already he's gotten stuck hanging 4 feet off the ground, having scaled the window guards like a maniac rock-climber and unable to get down. And since the apartment is going to be hermetically sealed for air conditioning until September, I'm inclined just to take the damn things off and rethink in the fall.

Opinions?

I am, however, seriously considering putting kiddie gates up on the stairs on and off the fire escape/patio, just in case the trepidation kid manages to jimmy the door open. What the hell, it's no more illegal than the hibachi the upstairs neighbors have on theirs.

window guards
 

I'm not an expert on apartment life, but your post brought to mind the story of an entire family in East Palo Alto who died when they couldn't get out of their burning house as a result of security grates over all of their windows. It sparked a public discussion about how these grates should all have removal mechanisms on the inside, but the hell of the situation is that if you live in a neighborhood where such things are necessary, you can't afford that kind of retrofit. So we'll all just wait until it happens again. I've never looked at those things the same way since.

That said, maybe NYC has different issues. For example, window guards could have saved Lexi Featherston's life.

Looking at the above post, I guess it would have been better to say I have nothing productive to add.

window guards
 

My opinion is that the rule is an overreaction to a relatively small problem that common sense and vigilence should adequately combat, and, further, that it probably fails to account for the alternative risks, such as the one identified by the fire department. While I have a hard time believing they couldn't whack through any window guards post haste in an emergency, I'd still be worried about getting out.

Why not get a couple of the standard window security latches that allow windows to open only four inches (unless slid to the open position)? If your child is able to figure out how to do that, and open the window, isn't your child old enough to realize that falling out the window hurts . . . a lot?

ETA: Here the first link I found when googling. Seems like any of these solutions create as much safety without increasing risks arising from fires.

window guards
 

I worked on a case in which four or five children burned to death because the bars on the windows couldn't be opened. She couldn't reach their room through the fire, and they couldn't get out the window. (This isn't the East Palo Alto fire that AG referenced; this was in Oakland.)

So, bars that won't open seem to me to be incredibly dangerous.

Double Strollers
 

Sing it, brudda SAM. Peapod rocked. You wouldn't go there for meat (or, depending, produce) necessarily, but all the other nonsense you have to put up with in grocery shopping can be avoided. The convenience, time saved, and ability to forego the battles with an infant in a grocery store were well worth whatever the delivery fee might be.

window guards
 

"Four or five"?!?! Sounds like you needed some interrogatories, bro.

window guards
 

I moved into a house where the windows on the second floor already had these thingeys where if you want to open the window more than a few inches you have to press in this thingey that (I believe) most kids wouldn't be able to figure out how to use. Then there is the screen behind it.

Are these contraptions available to add to existing windows that don't have them? You say you have furniture in front of some windows. That would seem to do the trick if the furniture is heavy and the kids can't move it. (As long as you could fling it to access the window easily if you needed to get out). For my house, I got one of those fire ladders to plop on the sill and crawl down. Though I can't imagine Vietbabe would be able to use it and would have to go down on my back. I had it in a box in the basement but after watching Towering Inferno one late night, broke it open and put it in my bedroom. In terms of apartment living, I am still in shock over Eric Clapton's 4 year old falling 48 stories. There needs to be at least something on there. Especially if you have cleaning people who might leave the windows open.

On a less dramatic note - thanks for all the advice on slugs. PS - I took the anti-slug advice on here before the post warning about chemicals. I dumped the stuff on the dahlia area as a preventive but I think it killed my dahlias. Bummer. Serves me right. And worse, after thinking the milky liquid was safer for Babe than pellets, before the milky liquid could be absorbed in the ground, Babe got an ice cream with gumballs as eyes (Dora) from the darn ice cream truck and it fell out of her mouth and dropped on the liquid mess in the garden and she bolted for it to put back it back in her mouth. Man, it's amazing how you just can't think of everything. That Dora's eye would fall out, right into a wet mess of major pesticides and child would grab it and injest. Shudder.

Speaking of taking advice, as per Atticus I now have this as my mailbox, having been able to purchase it with my $100 Amazon gift certificate.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0...CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
I have no time to dilly dally over these things. Atticus posted that it was a great mailbox and so I just bought it right away. You have such influence, Atticus. I like it but warning -- it is huge and I'm thinking too big for my teeny cape cod which has a cottage look. But darn if it doesn't hold several issues of magazines including the book size "Real Simple" magazine.

As for the Peapod, my sister swears by them. I didn't have it when Vietbabe was a teeny infant, but I would order on Netgrocer.com everything and it was nice to have on the screen different baby and kiddie-starter foods you could try. You can ponder what new baby foods they might like (and agonize over what bath time stuff, etc. you want) in the comfort of you home, rather than standing confused in the baby food. Plus your orders are "saved" so you can reorder by pulling up the prior order and revising it. Comes by fedex. Was it pricey? I don't remember. I was exhausted and clicking away on the computer after the 4 am feeding and not paying attention to cost.

Greedy sports fan board
 

There is absolutely, positively, absofucking posilutely no sport more exciting than playoff hockey.

Even if the players are 8 to 10 years old.

window guards
 

Just paint it white. Everything looks smaller painted white.

Greedy sports fan board
 

In related news, I attended my 3 year-old's ballet recital this weekend. Having had no sisters, I had never attended one before. It wasn't so bad. Certainly the parts where Soupette#1 was on stage were great. I guess the question is whether after 10 years of these things I'll still feel the same way.

Greedy sports fan board
 

The toughest decision that the father of daughters will make is whether to hand over their precious angels to French women, or Romanian men, to be berated and starved.

Personally, I'd go with the French women, if only because the aethetic payoff is greater, and because you don't want men to exchange knowing looks in ten years when one says, "She's a gymnast, you know."

Greedy sports fan board
 

Mphmmm. Much better for her to have a horrific eating disorder than for men to think she might be fun to have sex with.

Greedy sports fan board
 

I think that the (mainly correct) point of the Atticus post was that the eating disorder is a given with either option. Though I was a gymnast (until I kept on growing ever taller dammit) and I never lucked into the anorexia.

Greedy sports fan board
 

Huh. I don't associate eating disorders with gymnasts. My mistake, apparently.

Greedy sports fan board
 

Are these really the only two options? I was looking forward to having them learn to play drums and bass, and perhaps the cowbell.

Greedy sports fan board
 

They are GIRLS. God, Flinty, girls can't be in BANDS.

Maybe they can learn to play the harp.

Greedy sports fan board
 

I think your daughters are uniquely suited to the cymbals, esp. if you want to save them from a life of grinding organs whilst leashed to mustachioed Italians.

Greedy sports fan board
 

Right. I cannot quote the entire routine, but I think Chris Rock says something about fatherhood being pass/fail, and the only way to fail is if your daughter is on the pole. I think he meant the stripper's pole, but I take a broader view because we hold ourselves to a higher standard in my family, and so include the Uneven Parallel Bars. And wangs.

Greedy sports fan board
 

This describes your wife on our last date.

Greedy sports fan board
 

I think Meg White is living proof of the fact that while girls can be in bands, they cannot necessarily learn to play drums.