Weekly Roundup: Another Baby Edition
No, the title isn’t what you think. Last weekend, our good friends visited overnight with their 3-ish month old baby. That was our first under 1-year-old child in our home, and we had a great time. Unfortunately, the pool water was a bit too cool for the baby, so daddy sat it out while the rest of us lounged around in the water.
This weekend, we have another baby coming to visit, and she’s bring her parents along too. However, this baby is 6 months old, but the parents don’t think it’s a good idea to stay overnight because “the baby doesn’t handle strange places well”. WIe’re strange? Hmph. I think the parents have a hard time figuring out how to handle the baby in public and outside the family homes more than the baby has problems. I can say more on this, but I’ll bite my tongue.
So now for the roundup:
From the Personal Finance Network:
– Blunt Money complains about long, wasteful store receipts. While hers was at Sears, I’ve noticed needlessly long receipts at grocery stores. I bought 3 things, but the receipt is 2 feet long (literally). Why?
– Squawkfox teaches us about cooking quinoa. Stacie heard about this grain and decided to give it a try. I think she just cooked it in chicken broth, but I was surprised at how much I liked it. It wasn’t as good, to me, as couscous, but it was close.
– Canadian Capitalist tells us that you need to be a flexible investor. I would add that you need to be an informed investor as well!
– Four Pillars has a spot-on assessment that some goods are worthless when they leave the showroom. Yeah, Stacie’s diamond is “worth” thousands (that’s what they said when I bought it), but you show me someone willing to buy it from me for that much.
– MoneyNing shows us that he’s addicted to saving money, and a number of ways to save money (i.e. putting it in the bank).
From My PF Blog Reader List:
– Christian PF is giving away a copy of “Does Your Bag Have Holes?”. If you couldn’t win one here and can’t afford to buy it, hop over and enter to win.
– J Money from Budgets are Sexy is a millionaire! Ok, maybe not, but he and his new wife just got a huge wad of cash as a “Pay it forward” gesture. Wow. I can’t imagine someone giving us $1 for nothing much less, well, he doesn’t say how much but I’ll guess at least $50,000.
– Tricia from Blogging Away Debt had a conversation with her husband about downsizing their home, and he agreed they have wayyyy to much crap. Time to sell!
– Going on a long vacation? Frugal for Life tells us how to prepare your home for long trips. We’ll be following these tips closely when we go to Israel in November!
Thanks for the link! Have a great weekend.
Re the screaming baby: my thoughts exactly. One of ours screamed from 8:30pm until 1:30am every single night for months….I can’t think of anything worse than inflicting that on friends in their own home….they may be trying to save you. And if not that, well, first time parents tend to be a bit overprotective and nervous in new situations — cut them some slack if you can.
Enjoy your blog immensely.
S
My first thought was that the parents may be trying to save you the trouble of having to listen to a baby screaming during the night. Anyway, cool roundup!
Maybe they are not confident with their parenting skills in front of others, they will get used to it I am sure :+)
As other commenters have suggested, it may well be that the parents are trying to avoid inflicting a crying baby all night on a couple that doesn’t have children. I have two and we definitely try not to traumatize our child-free friends too much.
Also, all kids are different. My 4.5 year old was the most flexible baby ever; I could’ve handed her off to anyone and taken her anywhere. My 10 month old is much more sensitive to her environment and I can understand what the parents are saying about the baby not liking strange places. Babies just don’t always do what you want them to do.
Please try to give the parents a break. If you and your wife decide to have kids, you may someday be in their position and I imagine that future you would want to have extended more grace to your friends than your post implies.
Yeah, a crying baby wouldn’t have been a problem because it’s on the other side of the house. I simply think the parents don’t know how to let the baby just cry. They picked her up at every sound she made.
Honestly, there’s more to the story than I wrote, which is why I kept mum about it. Thanks for your input though!
YO, thanks for the shout out! While i still can’t say exactly how much we got, i can surely tell you that it wasn’t close to $50k 😉 although that would be nice. On the flip side, it was fairly higher than $1.00.
Also, maybe you should open up a baby sitting side gig. i bet you’d love that! haha…happy Monday my man.
Not to be a pain, but not everyone believes in letting babies cry, especially babies 6 months and younger. If your friends subscribe to attachment parenting, it makes perfect sense that they pick the baby up right away. I’m sure there is more to the story, but again, I would encourage you to offer them more grace than criticism. They are no doubt doing the best they can for their baby.
quinoa is a seed, and a complete protein. it’s awesome in salads and as a replacement for rice. enjoy!
Babies are just people … some are laid-back and will sleep anywhere, and some are uptight and won’t or can’t sleep in any bed but their own. 6 months is the time when parents try to get the baby to sleep thru the night instead of waking up every two hours, & a lot of times this involves a whole lot of crying as baby learns to soothe him/herself to sleep. Add in a stranger’s house (that is, a stranger to the baby) and unfamiliar lights, noises, voices, an unfamiliar crib … baby might be up half the night bawling. Perhaps instead you should thank your lucky stars that you have such considerate friends.
Have you ever met new parents? They are desperate for a break. Your friends’ aversion to staying in your house has nothing to do with being self conscious or about parenting in front of you. It has everything to do with the never-ending battle to get babies to sleep. You’ll see someday.