They're Taking Over

As anyone who has visited our house recently can tell you, our house is gradually being taken over by baby stuff. It turns out that for two babies, you need a lot of stuff. From the beginning, Kathy and I knew that all the baby products could not be contained by our tiny little nursery, so we started stockpiling the baby stuff in our living room. Over the weeks, the stockpile has grown and grown, and as of now, our living room contains two car seats, two double strollers, two "Bumbo" chairs, one swingey chair, two bouncy chairs, one play-mat, one box of rattles and toys, and various miscellaneous pillows, baby carriers, and bags. This has meant saying goodbye to our living room as we once knew it. Farewell, cat-tower/scratching-post-thing that Chloe never used. So long, chair foot-cushioney-thing and Japanese-floor-lamp-that-didn't-actually-provide-any-light-to-speak-of.

I never pictured we'd have quite this much baby stuff. I don't remember my younger brother and sister having any of this stuff as babies. They had a Winnie-the-Pooh doll, a blanket, a stroller that folded up to the size of an umbrella, a rattle, and that's pretty much it. And I'm not even sure about the rattle.

So when Kathy went out this weekend and bought something called a "Rainforest Jumperoo", I was extremely skeptical at first. I mean, first of all the thing is fricking gigantic:

There wasn't room for this monstrosity in our living room stockpile, so we had to put it in the one place in our house that actually has floor space, which is the kitchen. As Kathy brought it home and ceremoniously placed it in the one open space in our kitchen, grumpy-old-man thoughts went through my head, like "In my day, we didn't need jumperoos -- we entertained ourselves by staring at the popcorn-ceiling all day! And we liked it, dagnabbit!"

And then we put Leah in the Jumperoo.

And within thirty seconds, I remembered why parents buy all this crap for their babies.

Leah's eyes were suddenly all lit up and saucer-like, staring in amazement at the flashing lights surrounding her. Her mouth was at first open in wonderment, and then broke into an ear-to-ear grin of boundless joy. Her legs jumped and flexed about in an ecstatic dance that seemed to say "This Jumperoo completes me. Thank you, oh, thank you, beloved parents of mine."

It didn't last, of course. Fifteen minutes later, Leah was out of breath and a little grumpy. And eventually I'm sure that Leah and Riley will be bored of the Jumperoo, just like they're going to get bored of all the stuff in our living room. But, I tell ya, those first ten minutes of discovery with a new baby toy are totally worth it. Worth the money, worth the loss in living space, and worth the loss of our house as we knew it.

Right, Leah?