Danny ChaiSeveral people have suggested 1-800-Diapers. I dunno, I still think Pak-N-Save/Safeway is the best deal. For Size 3 Pampers Cruisers (Abby’s size), it’s 24¢ a diaper at 1-800-D; at Pak-N-Save, the sale price comes out to 22.5¢ per. And it’s always on sale, like every other week. Combine that with the Pampers coupons that are always in the Sunday newspaper, and I think it’s the best value.
Addendum: Arrowhead bottled water is also cheaper at P-N-S/Safeway when it’s on sale (as with Pampers, it’s always on sale, about every other week) compared to Costco. Not that I care. I can’t believe the bottled water industry has brainwashed us into believing that tap water will kill us and snookered us into paying lots of money for something that’s almost free. I bet someone can get rich selling prepackaged air. Not just an oxygen bar, but compressed air that you carry around with you and breathe all day. Anyway, I’ve decided to only drink tap water in defiance. I’ve been slightly sick for the last 2 weeks straight, but I’m sure that’s unrelated.
In my opinion, the hardest part of having a baby has been its effect on our marriage. Not that we fight more. If I think about it, we probably fight less. But that’s not a very good way of evaluating a relationship. I’ve always hated that: assessing something in terms of how much bad there is. But I think sometimes we do that with marriage, assess things as going well or not well based on how much or how little conflict there is.
But that’s clearly not right. For example, you could live two completely independent lives and never interact. There would be zero conflict, but it’s unquestionably a terrible relationship. I prefer to assess things in terms of how much positive, how much good there is. And that’s what’s been hard, I think. When Abby is awake, a lot of the attention is focused on taking care of her. When she’s down, it’s either a chance to finally take care of get the stuff we need to get done, or we’re so tired that we just want to do something brain-dead like watch TV, instead of doing something interactive together that, quite frankly, takes work.
In short, I find that having a baby has turned us somewhat into a coexisting couple. We live together, but we don’t live *together*, if that makes any sense. And that’s what’s been hard. Wise counsel has repeatedly advised us to have date nights, and that’s exactly what we need – intentional time to focus on each other. It’s just hard. Last time we left Abby to go to sleep with a babysitter she cried for like an hour and it messed up her sleeping for a while. But it’s about time we tried again; that’s what we need right now.