Geek in Heels - Page 103

Feb 22, 2011 • In Baby, Claire, Home

Baby Nursery on a Low to Mid-Range Budget

While sites such as Ohdeedoh are wonderful for nursery inspiration and exposure to baby/kid-oriented furniture and decor, it’s no secret that the majority of the stuff they feature are…well, expensive.

It was never our intention to go all-out on Claire’s nursery, the reasons being that the rest of our condo doesn’t contain high-end furniture (95% of our stuff is from IKEA), and she really wouldn’t care what her room looks like because she’s just a baby.

That being said, Claire’s room has become quite a cozy nook. It was completed on a low to mid-range budget — we spent less than $500 total, but if we include gifts it would total a little less than $1,500 — and I feel that it’s not too hideous. Since this is a nursery budget range that is not found often on the web, I wanted to share it with my readers, complete with the prices for each item (if available) and where we acquired them.

First, here are some pictures (sorry for the quality — they were taken with my camera phone because someone brings the camera with him to work every day):

I wish we had pictures of what the room looked like pre-baby, but I unfortunately do not. Suffice it to say that it was a typical guest bedroom with a queen-sized bed and a dresser-mirror unit. It also housed my digital piano. The walls were painted a pale green by the construction company before we moved in, and we haven’t touched it since.

As you can see from the pictures, the only thing we moved out was the bed. We kept the dresser-mirror and placed a changing pad on top. (This was a great idea because not only are we saving space, the mirror keeps the baby occupied during changings.) We have no room for the piano elsewhere in the condo, so we decided to keep it in the nursery for the time being.

All the stuffed animals and wall hangings were off-registry gifts, so I will not be listing them below.

Here are the items we received as gifts from our registry:

Newco Jayden Glider/Recliner, Babies”R”Us, original price $399.99 but $320 with 20% off coupon which my mother used.
I love this chair. It’s super-comfortable even for this short-legged gal, glides and reclines (the bottom part folds open like a La-Z-Boy), and I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between this glider and some of the more expensive, $1,000+ gliders. The few times that we experienced minor spills, the liquid beaded up on the micro suede fabric and so the clean-up was quick and painless. The color looks a bit greenish in the pictures, but in real life it looks very close to how it is pictured on the BRU website.

Simmons Beautyrest Beginnings Sophisticated Crib and Toddler Bed Mattress, Babies”R”Us, $179.99
I just picked out the firmest mattress they had at the store. It does its job, and I can’t complain.

Natures Purest® Hug Me Organic 4-Piece Crib Bedding Set by Summer Infant®, buybuyBABY, $199.99
The design and color are very gender-neutral and the fabric is super-soft. The crib bumper has an adorable (but not over-the-top) swirly design that Claire loves to stare at while she is drifting off to sleep. This was definitely one of the more luxurious items on our baby registry.

Summer Infant Day & Night Handheld Color Video Monitor, Babies”R”Us, $179.99
Unless you are planning on co-sleeping, I very, very strongly recommend a video monitor! This one isn’t too fancy (our friend has one that can be moved with a remote), but it does what it’s supposed to do.

2-Sided Contour Changing Pad by Colgate, buybuyBABY, $39.99
A typical changing pad. Nothing special.

Natural Organic Cotton Velour Changing Pad Cover, buybuyBABY, $14.99
We registered for two of these and received two so that we can change them out every couple of weeks. Again, nothing special but nothing to complain about.

Crane Adorable Penguin Ultrasonic Humidifier, buybuyBABY, $34.99
It does its job. I need to get some humidifier cleaner because it’s starting to develop some calcium scales.

Total: $984.93 (We are blessed with very generous friends and family!)

Items we purchased ourselves:

Graco Lauren Classic Crib, Babies”R”Us, original price $179.99 but purchased for $144 with 20% off coupon
Very solidly constructed and perfect for our budget and minimalist tastes.

NYFORS Floor Lamp, IKEA, $79.99
We wanted a floor lamp with a dimmer and this does the job.

ALVE Laptop Table, IKEA, $69.99
I have wanted this ever since it was released two years ago. Right now it serves as a side table that folds out for extra space, and I figure that I can use it as an actual laptop table for myself once Claire gets older.

RiverRidge Kids Horizontal Bookcase, Target, $49.99
Not the greatest quality product but it is the right size and suitable for our needs.

Thermal Insulated Blackout Curtains, Overstock.com, $54.99
I wanted cheap blackout curtains, and J wanted something red (what do you expect from a Chinese dude?). ‘Nuff said.

MINNEN Toy Box, IKEA, original price $14.99
So I just noticed that the website depicts the box with a fabric lock. What the? We got no lock with our purchase!

Fisher-Price Precious Planet 2-in-1 Projection Mobile, Amazon, $36.54
Everyone raves about the Infant Stim-Mobile, but Claire was bored by it and liked the rotating animals, moving projected images, and sounds of this mobile much better.

Last, but not least…

FABLER rug, IKEA, original price $34.99 but purchased for $20 at IKEA’s semi-annual sale.
Again, the crappy phone camera does not do it justice. It’s freakin adorable in real life. It’s also the only rug in our condo, and as such, Comang is in love with it. Homeboy thinks it’s his personal throne.

Total: $470.49

Oh, the speaker on the bookcase and the controller beside it are part of the Sonos Wireless Multi-Room Sound System, which was previously in our bedroom. We decided to move it to the nursery so that we can listen to tunes while playing with her. And if need be, we can control it from our computers from a different room.

I think I covered everything. Please let me know if you have any questions, or if I missed any items!

Hënj: IKEA’s Instructions for Stonehenge

This year’s QI Annual includes an awesome cartoon by Justin Pollard, John Lloyd and Stevyn Colgan: IKEA’s instructions for the iconic prehistoric monument.

I love the caption at the bottom, which reads:

Important! Ensure all components are free from mud, dung and evil spirits before assembly. Wear appropriate safety equipment (spear, flint knife etc.) in the event of bears. Small parts are not included.

If plagued by demons or suffering from pestilence, seek advice from a druid before attempting assembly.

May contain quartz.

Also, it seems as though the crucial ingredients are a magician and some beer. Enjoy!

Via Flavorwire.

KPop is Now a Legitimate Global Force

SeoulBeats writes:

There was a great story about Kpop and how it is becoming a legitimate global force in the music industry on Monocle, an hour long show about international news, culture, and design run by the same team that runs the magazine of the same name for Bloomberg. Based in London, the show’s hosts talked to entertainment industry leaders about the impact that Kpop is making around the world utilizing the power of social media. It’s definitely worth watching, check it out below.

I encourage anyone with an interest in KPop and/or Korean culture and its heavy foray into social media and the web (eg, it’s only via an online vote that Rain would win an MTV Movie Award) to watch this ~15 minute clip.

I only wish that the KPop implosion had occurred a decade or so earlier (mid 90s to the early 2000s) because I consider that period in time to be the golden age of KPop. While recent hits such as the Wonder Girls’ “Nobody” are catchy, they don’t hold a candle to the songs of earlier artists. And I know that I am not only reminiscing, because I have found plenty of teenagers who discover these earlier hits and openly admit that they are superior to the majority of today’s KPop tunes.

Every NBA Slam Dunk Contest

I’m not sure exactly why, but this year’s NBA Slam Dunk Contest didn’t seem to be as good as the previous years. While there is no doubt that Blake Griffin’s winning dunk was impressive, it just seemed too gimmicky and a bit over-the-top.

Anyhow, I happened upon a neat visualization that lists all the slam dunks from the contest’s history, complete with the scores and video. Head on over to Hoopism to re-live some of the best dunks in NBA history, including Michael Jordan’s classic from 1988 and “Vinsanity”‘s resurrection of the contest in 2000 after a 2-year hiatus. (Unfortunately, Nate Robinson’s 2010 dunk over Superman himself, Dwight Howard, is not available.)

Via Flowing Data.

Sleep Training Progress

It has now been exactly one week since we started sleep-training Claire. Although we haven’t made any miraculous changes to her sleeping habits, her sleeping has certainly gotten better.

Starting Friday, she has started to take at least 1+ hour nap per day and only protests napping in her crib about 20% of the time. This is a remarkable improvement from only napping 30 minutes at a time and flat-out refusing to sleep in the crib during the day (she would only nap in her swing).

Her nighttime sleep continues to stay consistent with about 3 wakings per night. Since she is almost 5 months old (21 weeks this Thursday), I have been told that we can start to try for 2 wakings per night, but I want to get her naps sorted our first.

According to sleep experts, nap training is almost always more difficult than nighttime sleep training, and while nighttime sleep training may last a few days, nap training can last as long as 2-3 weeks. And while I would love to cut out a nighttime waking, I can live with it since she always goes right back to sleep after a bottle and a diaper change. Besides, many babies naturally start skipping a nighttime waking as they near 6 months of age and I am hoping that this becomes the case with Claire.

I have never seen Claire pout as much as she did the day she slept particularly poorly.
(And I’m sorry for the blurry picture — it was taken in a moving car with my crappy phone camera.)

Having having read numerous books and internet resources on infant sleep, I am now certain that some babies are just naturally better sleepers than others. How else you can account for babies such as my next-door neighbor’s, who starting sleeping 10 hours straight every night — without any sort of sleep training — since he was 2.5 months old? And that even a week-long trip to Ireland didn’t disrupt his sleeping habits? (When his mother told me that she wanted to “die” during the first couple of months when he would “only” sleep 4-5 hours at a time, I REALLY had to force a smile to let her know that 4-5 is the norm for my 5-month-old daughter.)

Then there are babies who are just poor sleepers from the get-go. These are the ones who wake up more than 5 times per night even past 6 months of age, will only catnap during the day, and are tremendously difficult to sleep-train.

From what we have experienced so far, Claire seems to be more difficult than the average baby, but is not nearly as high-maintenance as some babies I have read about. And for that, I am thankful.

Many times I have found that other mommy bloggers mention sleep training, but often do not get into the details. For this reason, I plan on writing another detailed post in the near future about how we sleep-trained Claire, complete with the resources we used. I hope that with this post, I can help other mothers as well as future mothers who struggle with their babies’ sleep.

We will continue to sleep-train until Claire’s naps are sorted out. You have no idea how much happier a baby is when he/she is well-rested!

And in the meantime, I hope to return to my regular blogging schedule starting today. Thanks for your patience and support!

Photo Opportunities: Hundreds of Tourist Photos as One

Conducting online keyword searches for world-famous monuments and tourist hotspots, visual artist Corinne Vionnet culled thousands of tourists’ snapshots for her series Photo Opportunities. Each image in the series was created by superimposing hundreds of pictures of the monuments — the effect is quite haunting and ethereal, and inevitably wistful.

Saint Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow

Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China

Taj Mahal, India

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Acropolis of Athens, Greece

The (former) World Trade Center, New York

Coliseum of Rome, Italy

Eiffel Tower, Paris, France

Himeji Castle, Japan

Head on over to My Modern Met for more from the series.

Via Geekosystem.

No Matter What

No matter how angry, upset, or frustrated she makes me, I can never stay mad at her for too long. Especially when I catch her sleeping like this.

(I am currently lying in bed, about to doze off myself. Nap-training doesn’t seem to be getting much better, but I have renewed hope after reading a new baby sleep book today. Also, this is my first entry posted from my phone, using the WordPress Android App. Let’s see how it turns out…)

Another Break

We’ve having more issues on the baby front.

I’m too stressed and drained to blog.

I’ll be back when things get better.

(And if anyone has any recommendations on how to get a baby to nap more than 30 mins at a time so that she’s not tired and cranky the entire day, I’d love to hear it.)

Androidify Yourself

Androidify is a free app in the Android Market which allows you to craft your own version of the Android robot. Yes, it is yet another “create your own avatar” application, but it’s pretty amusing for Android fans such as myself.