Just Sitting Around

So the bad news is Ellie has reflux. Poor kid. Each feeding time is a bit of an adventure, to say the least. We've figured out a few tricks to help her, one of which is to keep her upright for a while after she eats. Most of the time she falls asleep while she eats, which means sitting and holding her vertical while she digests a bit (I know, apparently I am fostering all kinds of sleep disorders by letting her fall asleep with feeding and then sometimes holding her while she sleeps and she will grow up to be an emotional wreck and probably a drug dealer--according to all the expert books--but she is keeping her food down better and she can sleep without feeding or having me hold her and does so for about 7 hours a night, so take that experts). Anyway, we thought it would be helpful to keep her upright more while she is awake too, and since I can't sit and hold her all day we thought we'd look for one of those infant chairs since she seems to like sitting up.

We were going to get one of these:

But then we saw THIS:


The Deluxe Ultra Super Sonic Saucer Sitter XL 3000. Okay, that's not what it's really called, but it looks like it should have a name like that. It's actually the same price as the "bumbo" chairs with trays, and this one comes with all the toys, etc. All kinds of fun.

Ellie seems to like it, though she's still working up the neck strength to stay in it for a really long time. So I guess it's a good solution. The toys aren't annoying, no loud music or flashing lights. Seems win-win. But somehow I still can't help feeling like I've been succored every time we buy some kind of baby gear. Unless it's books or clothes, maybe some small, simple toys, I feel like we're just accumulating more stuff. We've done a good job of getting great deals. Consignment sales, craigslist, etc. Just about everything Ellie owns is second-hand (although we didn't hold back when it came to the car seat). This seat is also new, but after I called the consignment stores around here and looked for deals online, this ended up only being a few dollars more than we would have gotten used. We haven't bought anything that hasn't been really useful so far. But still, I can't help feeling like we're getting a little bogged down. How did the pioneers do it before exersaucers and Baby Einstein? (we haven't bought those yet . . .)

P.S. Don't know why this picture is sideways. it worked on my computer.