The Charlie Fiscal Model

[marydell]

Charlie is not an ordinary baby.  In addition to having lethal quantities of cute, he has been in the 95th percentile for weight and over 100th percentile for height since he was about 4 months old.  Currently he is 8 months old, 31 inches long, and 25 pounds.  For those who don't have a baby handy to comparison-measure, that roughly translates to OMG YOUR BABY IS HUGE.  He is currently wearing clothes for the 12 to 18 month range.


He also has, as discussed in these pages, hellacious eczema and sensitive skin, so he does best with very soft, 100% cotton clothes, and unscented blah blah, and pthalate-free blah blah.

Charlie's fiscal model:  1. Mommy looks at expensive stuff, rejects it as overindulgent and ridiculous despite appearing to have enough money to be able to acquire it, if she really has to.  2. Mommy buys normal stuff for me at perfectly nice stores like Target & Babies R Us.  3.  I reject stuff, preferably by developing a rash - or - outgrowing it in mere moments.  4. I giggle with glee as Mommy buys more expensive, fancier baby stuff from to replace perfectly good stuff she bought the first time around. 

Things we have bought twice:

• Newborn sleeper thingy.  We started with a bassinet with soft sides.  Newborn Charlie kept rolling over to the side of it despite not being able to roll over yet, because his asymmetry made him flip toward the side with the heavier arm.  Clever boy!  Replaced now suffocation-hazardy thing with slat-sided cradle.
• Mattress.  Ordinary baby mattress replaced with one that's better for his allergies.
• Changing table cover - ditto; also the new one has padding across the part by his head, since he kept banging his head on the rail.
• High Chair - perfectly nice first chair has a high back, which when he's got a rash he uses to itch the back of his head.  Replaced with low-backed booster chair, hopefully temporarily.
• Infant Car Seat - the portable seats that snap onto the grocery carts etc. are essential for a baby who can't sit up yet.  The normal models are only good until the baby is 27" long.  Charlie didn't start sitting until recently, so we got him a tall-baby infant seat that's rated up to 32 inches.  Third seat is imminent.
• Skin creams of every kind. However here my pocketbook had one triumph, because the $50 prescription moisturizer gave him a rash, too, and thus far ordinary Eucerin is working ok.
• Baby food of every kind; now I make it from scratch using a fancy baby food cooker.  In this case I just cut to the chase and bought the damn overpriced thing without trying to find a cheaper small cooker, because I have learned the fiscal model.
• Every sort of clothing known to baby, except shoes. I started off buying him the expensive shoes, and they have worked out great and still fit, go figure. The boy's demanding, but consistent.