Inglesina Zuma

My husband and I initially decided that we wanted to use a booster seat with our son. The minute our lease is up (4 weeks!!!) we are moving to Brooklyn, and we know that the less space taken up by baby gear, the better. This was all fine and good until the day my son discovered the power in his legs, and he started lifting his legs and using the table to propel himself backwards. Fortunately he never hurt himself, but I told my mother-in-law about this, and two weeks later we were at Baby Blossom picking out a high chair for James.
It was not love at first sight with the Inglesina Zuma. My first thought? Jeez, this is huge and outrageously expensive. At $299, the Inglesina costs more than the Tripp Trapp and the Svan and doesn't have the fancy carpentry to compensate. But what the Zuma lacks in wooden appeal, it more than makes up for in convenience. The seat has three heights and a removeable tray, so the child can sit at the table like with the Tripp Trapp and the Svan. But the tray is still there for finger food and mess! Remove the tray and lower the seat all the way, and you also have a great little toddler chair. Magnets keep the fabric in place, and there's a five-point harness in addition to the crossbar/pommel/strut between baby's legs.

But you could find all of this out from Inglesina's website. What about the cons? The space between the tray and baby is pretty large, and pieces of food get around the strut and underneath the fabric. Because of the extra room, sometimes toes sneak above the tray (see picture of son wearing blue). Uh, isn't the whole point of having a high chair to keep toes from getting into food? Otherwise, I would feed my son in his carseat! The Zuma also takes up a lot of room while it is open, however, it folds up very tightly and neatly, which was a big selling point for the apartment dweller in me.

Overall? This is not the catholicon for high chairs like the Inglesina Zippy is for strollers. It's a beautiful chair, and my son loves it, but for the money there could be some big improvements. Still, I love the seat and am very happy with it, and from what I hear almost every high chair has its negatives. If you have a disposable income, this is a great seat to purchase, as it is both a traditional high chair and a chair designed to include baby with the family at dinner. Not only that, the seat looks great! To get more of an idea on it check out Babble's review of it.

Since this is Inglesina's first go at the high chair market, I am sure two or three models down the road, this will be the high chair that everyone wants. Until then, putting up with the kinks is way worth it.

The Inglesina Zippy

In my earlier post, I talked about prebaby ambitions and goals. One of our loftier goals is to avoid Chinese made products. This is so much easier said than done. Even the fancy European brands that were made in Europe when my sister (age 9) was a baby are outsourcing to China. This is also a tough goal if your friends and family do not know about your decision. We have been given so many Chinese made toys and we don't want to be "those people." So usually when such a toy is given to us, we do the research on the company and their practices and make our decision from there.

Eventually keeping our goal with toys became close to impossible, and while we are still very aware of the toys we buy, we decided to focus more on big purchases, ie ones that cost more than $100.

First came the stroller search. My husband and I spent 3 hours at this store. We could literally be seen in the parking lot pushing around strollers as my husband got his engineer on, examining the mechanics of each and every one. This store carries every European designed stroller on the market, and we had a blast choosing one. We were surprised to learn, however, that several of the strollers that we were considering were made in China. Suddenly that $800 price tag no longer radiated of European luxury, but of robbery.

Eventually we decided on the Italian made Inglesina Zippy stroller, which I adore. The Inglesina is sturdy and reliable and I like the one handed close. Another cool bonus is that the seat converts to a flat enough back for an infant. I also like that we were able to have an awesome European stroller that was within our price range.


The Postitives:

Compact fold (excellent for city dwellers)
One handed fold, I can hold my son and collapse the stroller while getting onto the Subway
Can be used beginning in infancy without a carseat
Fabric easily wipes clean
Large storage space
Convenient magnetic pocket on visor
The visor can move all the way down to your child's feet so baby stays dry if it rains
The wheels are easily manuevered
Comes with a muff at no extra cost
At $400 it is a "steal" with most European "designed" strollers (ie made in China) costing much more
Despite weighing only 17 lbs (!!!) it is very durable
Made in Italy (if that matters to you)


The Negatives
The lower basket can only be accessed from the front and sides
It takes a few days to figure out how the visor works and how to collapse the stroller with the visor on
The cupholder is a joke
At $400, it is one of the more expensive strollers on the market

As you can see, the positives far outweight the negatives. I seriously had to sit down and think about the negatives for awhile. If you are really stuck on what kind of stroller to get, I highly reccommend this one.

The Right to Privacy

Last night, the whole family went to a Baptism class, since James is being Baptized in a couple of weeks. While at our church, I ran into my 85-year-old grandmother who promptly scooped my son (her great-grandson) into her arms and took him to introduce to some of her friends. Now, the Church where we are baptizing James also happens to be the same church I went to throughout my entire childhood. I went to the Parish school there from Kindergarten to 8th grade, and as a result, I can't really go anywhere within 2 miles of that community without running into someone I know. I have accepted that. Which is why I don't really hang out in that part of town...well, ever, if I can control it. So anyway, my abuela went upstairs to show off her great-grandson, and of course, the women who she talked to all knew me. And one of the women had daughters a few years younger than me and asked my grandmother if she could take a picture with her camera phone to send to them. What kind of question is that to ask an 85-year-old woman? Oh, I'll tell you! A stupid one. My grandmother is a pretty savvy individual, she knows about the internet, she has a digital camera and she has a cell phone. But guess what, she never uses these things. She knows how to, but she chooses not to. So she has no idea that a single camera phone picture could be circulated on the internet in minutes, curious eyes lapping up the proof that someone close to their age has procreated, the proof that despite our wishes to deny it, we are all growing up.

So, of course, my grandmother complied with the woman, and allowed her to take a picture of my son. And the woman then sent the picture to her daughters in college. And all of this occurred without my knowledge.

So I ask you, when did it become OK for people to take pictures of our children without OUR permission? When did our privacy suddenly not matter anymore? I hold nothing against my grandmother, she didn't know any better, she doesn't understand that this girl could post the picture on facebook, turning my son into an exhibit, no longer a human.

When I was growing up, we came home on the first day of school every year with a waiver for our parents to sign. If the waiver was signed, the school had permission to use photos of the parents' child/children in publications. Now obviously, this camera picture won't be used in any publications (hopefully..) but suppose one of her daughters chooses to post the picture on Facebook, MySpace, etc. What then? Where are my rights with this? Where are my son's rights? I am not on Facebook, and so I have no way of knowing if pictures have been posted of my son. And what if the daughter chooses to forward the picture to friends? That kind of circulation makes me cringe. To have no idea who has a picture of my son in their possession? It's maddening. And I want to ask the woman who took this picture how she would feel if someone had done this to her without her knowledge.

OH, and to top it all off- she saw me in the hall later holding the baby she had just taken a picture of and pretended not to know me.

Unbelievable.

Baby Update

I really wish someone had told me these words of advice:

The first 8 weeks of parenting suck. No, it's not just the lack of sleep. It's not just the whole readjusting to a new identity. It's not just freaking out over your new mom body. BUT I PROMISE IT GETS BETTER (why didn't anyone tell me this?!?!).

I'm going to be brave and say it- newborn babies are boring. They can't smile for you yet. They're not cooing yet. They are totally incapable of doing anything but the following: crying, pooping, peeing, nursing.

But then the baby hits 8 weeks...and it's amazing. The torturous 8 weeks are so beyond worth it the first time your baby wakes up in the morning and smiles for you.

Now according to everyone I know, I am incredibly lucky, and I know I am. James is such a good baby. He barely cries- ever. He is already sleeping an 8 hour chunk. I was totally terrified I was sleeping through his cries, and I actually stayed up all night recently to listen for his cries. SILENCE. He's either sleeping or in the most amazing quiet alert state, watching everything around him with wonder and awe. The only time he cries is if his view of the world is covered or he is seriously hungry. His wonder at the world is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. That still doesn't take away the fact that the first 8 weeks suck beyond belief.