Top Ten Tuesday: Who The Hell Needs That?! Me.

I have a really hard time spending money on myself. I’m very generous when it comes to presents or favors or loans and the like, but tubes of mascara have to be literally dried to crumbs before I will splurge on a new one (and we’re not talking Lancome here, people. Maybe its Maybelline!). Get my nails done or break the bank by downloading some new books for the ol’ Kindle? Non-essential and thus unapproved!

It’s not a lack of funds — I just have a hard time justifying indulging in something that benefits no one but myself. Perhaps intensive therapy to bolster my self-esteem is in order, but that sounds like a lot of work.

And it’s not just my money that I don’t want spent on stuff for me. When TFW and I went to register for wedding gifts a few years back, I had a full-scale meltdown in the middle of the Macy’s housewares department, right in front of the display of overpriced pots and pans. My oblivious husband-to-be was using that scanner like it was going out of style (“and I declare, our linen closet shall be stocked with enough towels for every man, woman and child this side of the Mississippi! AND EXTRA WINE GLASSES FOR ALL!!”), while I was inching closer to mental breakdown with every addition. After bickering with him about which pots and pans to select, I burst into panicky tears (literally — this tale is not hyperbole, sadly):

“I can’t do it! I just cannot ask people to buy us this cookware! We could find it on Amazon.com for half the price!!!”

I eventually just started wildly scanning whatever items were within arms’ reach in a mad dash to finish the task while TFW wondered what was wrong with his fiance (and why we couldn’t get the fancy toaster). I fretted over every single item we registered for right up until the day I received said gifts and realized how awesome it is to have people outfit your home with brand new stuff at no personal expense.

(Seriously, though — $100 for a frickin’ wok?! If you don’t experience complete emotional collapse at the sight of that price tag, I’m not sure we can be friends.)

I tried to learn from the experience. When it was time to register for my baby shower, I gave myself a pep talk: I would not freak out in Babies R Us (not even about their stupid name). I would not let guilt get the best of me and put only the cheapest crap on the list. This stuff was for the baby and he deserved nice stuff! I even brought my big sis along since she has two young children and would be able to advise me on which items I’d want to make sure to include.

The experience wasn’t as bad as The Great Macy’s Meltdown of ’09 (never forget), but I still found myself scoffing at about two thirds of the items on the registry guide. Do people really use all this stuff? I wondered. Surely most of these items were just expensive filler, perhaps trends or fads perpetuated by The Real Teen Mom Housewives’ Beverly Hills Nanny or something. I stuck to the essentials and figured I would have everything I needed and more when the baby arrived.

Of course, as anyone who has had a child knows, babies necessitate a lot of crap. Ridiculous crap, things that you would never dream of purchasing were there not a tiny human screaming in your arms. Once the baby arrived and we started getting settled in with him, I realized I had grossly miscategorized many, many items as “unnecessary”. As it turns out, a lot of ridiculous shit magically becomes critical to survival as soon as you become a parent. Behold…

The top ten things I thought were frivolous and then totally went out and purchased after the baby arrived when I realized that anything that makes your life even 1% easier is worth its weight in gold when there is a screaming baby and overtired mama involved:

10) Bottle warmer:

Before baby: “Are you kidding me?! Are people not familiar with the hot water that comes right out of their kitchen sink, which can be collected in a bowl and into which one can submerge a bottle for warming purposes?”

After baby: “Five minutes is entirely too long to wait for this godforsaken bottle to warm in hot water. Do you not hear him crying, writhing in pain from the hunger?! There’s got to be a better way!”

9) Swaddle wraps:

Before baby: “I don’t get it. Just wrap a blanket around him. We’ve got lots of blankets, we’re good here.”

After baby: “For the love of christ, why won’t he sleep?!?! What’s this I hear about swaddling? It comforts them? Go forth and purchase the most glorious swaddler money can buy!”

Exhibit A: this is NOT swaddling. This is just a blanket wrapped around a five-day-old baby so loosely he was able to bust his arms out in the time it took me to set him down and take this photo.

8) Bassinet:

Before baby: “We’re getting a Pack N Play anyway (for all those trips we definitely will never take). He can sleep in there in our room until he’s ready to move into his crib. Why would we buy something he’s only going to use for a few months?”

After baby: “I just googled ‘baby will only sleep in carseat’ and this little rocking bassinet thing was recommended. You have one hour to go pick it up from Babies R Us before I die from lack of sleep and you are left to figure out what to do with this kid by yourself.”

7) “Womb sounds”/white noise machine thingy:

Before baby: “What the hell is this?!”

After baby: “Amazon.com says it soothes babies and helps them sleep. Did you hear me? POTENTIAL SLEEP IMPROVEMENT!!!”

6) Breastpump:

Before baby: “I’m only going to have to pump a couple times a day during work, and they’re so expensive. I can just borrow that old one my sister has in her garage (which she inherited from our aunt…like 14 years ago).”

After baby: “This. Is. Torture. I will pay any amount of money for anything that might be easier to use and was perhaps manufactured during my lifetime.”

5) Diaper Genie:

Before baby: “This is a scam, right? A special trashcan cannot possibly be necessary.”

After baby: “Wow. Diapers smell a lot worse than I remembered from when my sisters were babies. Like…a lot worse. Are they putting something in diapers that combines with poop to make it smell worse, just to torture us? Because this can’t be normal.”

4) Second carseat:

Before baby: “There’s only one of him, and henceforth we only need one carseat. We’ll just switch it between our cars when we need to, duhhhhhhhhh.”

After baby: “Holy mother of god could they have made these ‘latch’ things any more difficult to tighten?! I am never switching this monstrosity between cars again, so either buy another one or I’m just gonna start strapping the kid to the roof and hoping for the best.”

3) Umbrella stroller:

Before baby: “We’ve got the regular stroller and my sis is giving us her old jogging stroller. Why on earth would we need a THIRD stroller, much less one that’s tiny and flimsy and looks more appropriate for a doll than a human child?”

After baby: “Those strollers are giant and way too much work to wrangle for a quick jaunt into Target. I get it now. I’ll take the one with dinosaurs on it, please.”

2) New larger clothes (for me):

Before baby: “I’m not naive; I know I won’t be back to my normal size immediately…but I’ll just schlep around in jammie and leggings for the first few weeks until my old clothes fit again.”

After baby: “HAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA! HAHAHAHAHAHHA….hahahaha. Ha. Um, hello, Express. Help me. Clothe this mishapen body, I beggeth of thou.”

1) Glow-in-the-dark space pajamas:

Before baby: “My goal is to purchase as few clothing items for this child as we can possibly get away with. We received plenty at the shower and he’s got tons of hand-me-downs; there’s no need to buy anything more.”

After baby: “OH. MY. GOD. I don’t even care what they cost, I will mortgage my entire future to see my adorable child in these adorable pajamas. ADORABLE!”

Don’t worry, they were only $14. Totally worth it: