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Well… we’re 8 and a half months into being parents. Plenty of money has been spent on baby gear, by our family and friends as well as by us. Some of that money has been wasted, some of it very well spent. What I want to do with this post is cover some of the stuff that has made our lives SO much easier or was well worth the money spent.

One thing we decided early on was that we would be buying (or asking for) quality baby gear that we could use for the next baby. It might cost a little more, but from a safety and long term cost perspective it’s worth it to spend a little more up front.

My biggest frustration with baby gear has been the fact that it’s constantly changing. Trying to compare items is next to impossible with what seems like a gazillion variations of each item.

On to the stuff we love…

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Living in a townhouse can pose some interesting challenges. One of mine was mowing the small patch of grass in the front of our house. Our front lawn consists of a patch of grass approximately 10′x12′. A few years ago, I set out to find a better way.

When I was a kid I remember mowing the grass with a reel mower, which was great as you could hang it up on the wall, no fooling around with gas, nothing but a little kid power required to get the grass mowed. We tried that for a little while here, but one downside to reel mowers is that they work best when the grass hasn’t grown too high and you need a little bit of room to get the reel moving at a speed that actually cuts the grass instead of just bending it over.

Still not wanting to mess with gas, I tried using an electric weed whacker for a while. The patch of grass is small enough to actually get away with this and with a steady hand, actually doesn’t come out looking too bad. A day or two after cutting the grass the downsides of that approach would show up, patches that I missed or cut unevenly, that were now looking like sh**.

I was thinking at this stage that I needed a regular mower, but regular mowers were still not an option. I still didn’t want to mess around with gas as I didn’t have a good place to store it. Another factor working against me was that our townhouse in in the middle of the set, I wasn’t about to lug a big mower through the house, especially a gas powered one.

I started my search, but all I could find at first were 18″ corded electrics, there were also a few larger cordless ones at the time. Those would probably do the trick, but I still wasn’t happy, I needed something smaller and lighter. After a while I finally found the Lawn Pup, but they weren’t in stock anywhere. Good old Ebay came through and I had my Lawn Pup a few days later for around $80 or so, lightly used. It has a 13″ blade, the body made of a sturdy plastic and it’s powerful enough to hold up to all but the heaviest of grass.

It looks like a child’s toy, especially in person, some people give me funny looks when I bring it outside, but those looks fade quickly once I start mowing the grass. The bad thing is that I don’t believe that they make them anymore, and can’t find them anywhere, which is too bad. What I’d love to see is a cordless version, I would buy one in a minute if someone made one…

I did find a few possible replacements if my Lawn Pup gives out on me before we move into a single-family home.