Miss Star if You’re Nasty.

Ok, so I took Babystar to the Women’s March in D.C. SHE FREAKING LOVED IT. She loves being outside and watching other people and being sosososoclose to mama and the March had all of these things. She loved chanting and clapping. And she loved holding her tiny sign (made by the Teenager) up high with everyone else.

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Babystar was in the Tula for TEN HOURS STRAIGHT. I only took her out for bathroom/diaper breaks three times in that ten hours. Negligent? Perhaps. But there were like over half a million people there and bathroom breaks were really difficult. She loved it. Now I want a mama-sized Tula because it is clearly the most comfy place ever. And y’all? My feet hurt like whoa the next day and my legs are still a little sore but my back? Nada. Fine. Babystar is twenty-five pounds and change. And Tulas are clearly magic.

Anyway. Her tiny sign didn’t cost us anything extra. We had already bought an eight-pack of poster board and we still have one left over. We already bought the markers. We DID have to buy a clear backpack for the baby. We went ahead and bought three since we were buying one already and most of the cost was in the expedited shipping. (Nothing was available on Amazon Prime. I found cheap clear backpacks on Walmart’s website, of all places.)

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In retrospect, we probably didn’t need to buy them. No one was stopping and frisking.
And we would have simply used small purses for our phones and money and regular cheap drawstring ‘backpack’ bags for our water and snacks. But I could not risk having a non-clear backpack full of diapers and wipes and her cup and snacks and extra clothes confiscated. So that $36.09 goes in Babystar’s column.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $14,400.46

Starstruck.

I am in love, over the moon, OBSESSED with my new baby carrier. Yes, this makes five. Plus the water ring sling. (I gave away the Moby and K’tan.) Shhhh.

This print is EVERYTHING.

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Rainbow Freaking Stars, I think it’s called. Or Incandescent Adventure, actually. I bought three of the Smart Bottoms diapers and one wet bag in this print at the Lil’ Tulips booth at MommyCon. Well, actually one of the diapers was Luminescent Adventure and two were Incandescent Adventure but they are basically the same except one is horizontal and one is vertical. Whatever, it’s RAINBOW FREAKING STARS.

(Oh, and I have one of those Incandescent Adventure Smart Bottoms diapers still unwashed and unused with a fun surprise in mind.)

I ordered the Tula and checked out and then remembered that I also wanted the matching Smart Bottoms drool pads. I hate paying shipping so I also added a pretty unicorn wet bag to the order to get to the minimum of $35 necessary for free shipping.

So I now get to wear Babystar in this beautiful Tula with matching drool pads and then keep it in a matching zippered bag. And she could even wear her matching diapers! I am genuinely so excited about this. I know it’s absurd and I don’t even care.

Between the mall and the zoo and regular life, we have already logged over ten hours in this baby and I’ve had it less than a week.

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Look how pretty they are all packed up. That new unicorn bag has stars on it too — teeny tiny stars. The Tula Coast Shine lives there now.

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I still love my Beco carriers but these Tulas are so soft and comfy, for me and for Babystar. Plus my husband can use them, and he had a hard time with the Beco. He loves wearing Babystar in a Tula, though. Yes, I am trying to justify these carriers to you lovely strangers on the Internet. Is it working?

RAISING BABYSTAR: $12,699.77

We Tried to Make Her Hands Clap.

I almost forgot.

Like idiot parents, we tried to take Babystar to a rock show. At a night club. At night. What.

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She really does like the song “HandClap” by Fitz and the Tantrums. And so do I. So we all went to the show. Me, the Husband, Babystar, and all three teenagers (the girl, the boy, and his girlfriend). Basically, all of the babysitters were with me.

I was smart enough to insist on two separate cars because I had a feeling she might not make it until the end of the show. She didn’t even make it through the opening band. She was into it, but she refused to leave her Baby Banz Earmuffs on her head so we had to leave. Her $40 ticket was wasted. (Mine too, but whatever.)

I heard the show was pretty good from these three.

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Plus the stepdad I left them to babysit. Yes, I left the teenagers in charge. Husband was on his second vodka soda when I left.

Babystar and I sang to the radio and she clapped her hands all the way home.

We are trying this concert thing again later this month at Randall’s Island. Hopefully, she will do better since it is outside. Fingers crossed.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $10,580.58

Naive Tula Virgin.

You guys I was so dumb.

I decided that I needed a mesh baby carrier for carrying Babystar this summer. She was all hot and sweaty in her Beco Gemini last summer, and now she is old enough to have opinions.

I did all my research like a good little mama. I tried on the Moby Aria last year at MommyCon and didn’t really love the fit.  I love my Becos but I read the Beco Breeze was just sort of ok. I planned to try one on at MommyCon DC this year but I’m going to NYC to see Arcade Fire instead. (Poor me, right?) And I plan to wear Babystar at Randall’s Island for the show so I definitely needed wanted to get a mesh carrier sooner rather than later. I read that the Tula mesh carriers were the bomb so I decided to get one of those. Then I saw the super cute ‘Shine’ design (with STARS OMG) so I decided to wait until that one was available.

Tuesday, May 31, 5pm EST. Some of you already know this. Ok, I went onto the website a few minutes before 5pm and refreshed the site until the carriers were there, and put one in my cart. I admit I did take my time checking out, but it was still only like 5:06 when I finished typing in my payment information and I got a message that there was an inventory problem with my cart. Womp-womp.

I was devastated. WAY more upset than I should have been about a baby carrier.

I removed it from my cart and went back to the site. The carrier still showed available, so I tried again. The same thing happened. Are you surprised? No one is surprised, right?

About thirty minutes later I went to the Baby Tula Facebook page to see if something was maybe wrong with their website. Because I am an idiot and I was sure there had to be some sort of glitch. Nope. Apparently they sell out that fast. APPARENTLY I was supposed to keep refreshing the cart until it showed up as available and then buy it super quick. I didn’t know the system. Whoops. And by that time, when I went back to the site, the carrier was actually listed as ‘Out of Stock.’ I had missed it.

Ok, no problem. I’ll buy it from trusty Abby’s Lane. It was stocking there a couple of days later. Guess what happened? Yep. Missed it again.

I emailed retailers to ask about stocking times. I joined Tula in the Know, a VERY helpful Facebook page. I joined mailing lists for tiny boutiques all over the country. I kept missing them! Sometimes by literal seconds!

I saw the $149 carriers listed for sale for over $200 on eBay and other resale sites and I was SO MAD.

But then. Bay & Bee, a boutique shop in Jacksonville, Florida, announced on their website that they would have a few Tula Shines for sale on Friday, June 10, in their Jacksonville shop. And some wonderful person posted that information to the Tula in the Know Facebook page. My 19-year-old son was about an hour away from that shop. And. AND. He was conveniently flying to my house for the summer on the night of June 10. And he loves me. So he drove into Jacksonville to be there at 9am when the shop opened and bought one for me. $149 + tax = $159.43.

Wow. WHO FREAKING KNEW it would be so hard?? Everyone, right. Everyone but me knew. Didn’t you?

Also, I love it.

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RAISING BABYSTAR: $10,346.81