Yesterday Matt and I had a real, honest to goodness, dinner and a movie, date night. Before this we had gone out twice before without Nate, and both times Matt’s parents (and the first time it was just his dad) watched him for us. So this was the first time we went out and left him with non-family.

Yesterday Oprah’s show was about decluttering your home, and her guest was organizational expert Peter Walsh. Peter went to a few homes and helped people tackle majorly messy areas in their homes. He helped them figure out what to keep and what to donate, he gave rules about only keeping things that are useful (and you must have a specific use in mind) or that you love, and he instructed us to get rid of any article of clothing that we haven’t worn in six months.

I enjoy cooking. I’m not particularly good at it, but I enjoy it. I like the whole process of putting a meal together, and I also think I enjoy creating something which my family will enjoy. This makes me happy. What does not make me happy is the fact that the vast majority of the meals I prepare aren’t any good.

Now this is definitely not the most frugal way to raise a baby, but there are a few things I've discovered over these past nine months that have proven to be very useful. Here is my list of baby gear that is definitely not needed but makes life a whole lot easier:

Thankfully I have most of my Christmas shopping done, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about babies after having Nate around for the past nine months, it’s that they are not very good shopping companions. They’re not really awake all that long between naps. This makes getting out of the house, getting to the store, getting some shopping done, then getting back home before baby gets tired very difficult.