Fussy Baby Solution

I don't know about other babies but my baby has her scheduled "grumpy moments". 

"Scheduled?" you say? Yes, scheduled. 

Sjöfn usually gets fussy around 5 in the afternoon until around 6:30pm and no amount of milk or carrying around would change her mood. So, basically, I learned to live with it. As long as she's not wailing for an hour and a half straight, I believe I'm okay. Besides, her grumpy whimpers and unexplainable frowns are often times still irresistibly cute!

So, like clock work, Sjöfn started getting fussy at around 5pm yesterday. The thing is, we were stuck in the mall because I was so absentminded that I forgot that my car was number coded! I only realized it when my mom pointed out that it's 3pm and the window for driving around coded cars has ended. My mom was with me so she, like any proud grandma, lovingly carried my fussy daughter amidst her occasional kicking and frowning (she's not the screaming type, thank goodness!). If my mom wasn't there, I would have probably just left my car at the mall and taken a cab home because my baby was obviously getting over-stimulated from the crowded and busy mall environment.

To burn time, we went to the department store to check on new baby gear. Baby gear like strollers, swings, rockers, and bouncers are like Apple products (e.g. iPod, iPhone, iPad), there are always newer or better versions that fool us into thinking that we need them or, at least, want them enough to cause us to obsessively google them (only to find out that they're sold at a lower price in the United States - boohoo for Philippine residents like me).

We saw this new Fisher-Price baby gear called the Fisher-Price Newborn Rock 'n Play Sleeper. It seemed like a basic contraption - no lights, no mechanism, no annoying mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb songs playing on repeat. We decided to do the grumpy-Sjöfn-test on it and, believe it or not, it passed with flying colors! As soon as we started rocking her on that thing, she was all smiles and cooing at everyone! I looked at my watch and couldn't believe that it was 6pm, still her grumpy time! Finally! A solution to her fussiness!

But like most things overly commercialized, there was a draw back: the price tag. It was priced at a ridiculous amount of 6,000 pesos! One hundred ten dollars for something so simple??? Are you kidding me?? As my darling hubby would say: "Here in the Philippines, it's cheaper to just hire man power than to buy imported contraptions like dishwashers", in this case the imported contraption would be a baby rocker. Mag ya-yaya nalang ako (I'll just hire a nanny).

But, of course, I had to google it! The online Philippine stores didn't have it so I ventured to Amazon.com and, lo and behold, they have it at almost 1/4 the price! How I wish I lived in the States so I could take advantage of the 2-day free shipment of thousands and thousands of comparably cheaper baby products from Amazon.com. My hubby wouldn't be as enthusiastic about it though (haha).

I decided to do the next best thing: an Amazon.com baby registry. Sjöfn is celebrating her baptism soon and I asked a favor from my sweet Aunt Jenny from Seattle if I could forward all my baby registry gifts to her address and have them shipped door-to-door a la balikbayan box (thank you so much Tita Jenny! I owe you one!).

I included that Fisher-Price rocker in my registry. I hope someone gets it for little Sjöfn! 

For now, I'll be on the look out for a wooden version of the same thing. I'm sure they have it somewhere here in the Philippines! If not, I'll probably consider going to the department store every time the clock strikes 5 in the afternoon (haha).