BABIES EVERYWHERE

All you have to do to verify that we are experiencing a big baby boom is to sit down at a mall and watch what passes you by. I've never seen such a wide variety of carriages, running strollers and other futuristic looking devices obviously created by clever industrial designers to provide parents with ergonomically positive transportation. It is amazing! Management at shopping centers have already figured out that if they offer whimsical push carts (in the form of mini fire engines or horses) that parents will want to linger with the kids. Wonderful fountains and jungle-gym play equipment also serve as a draw for house-bound parents anxious for an outing.

Once at home the variety of cradles and swings that slowly rock your little one to sleep to various environmental sounds is amazing as well. Baby products are more complex these days and appropriately expensive. Where we just rapidly rocked an infant new parents can set a dial and free themselves from having to hold the kid. Warming a bottle also requires a special device that shortens the process of heating up a mid-night meal. Pour water in the well and in about 1 minute the bottle is warm! Magnifique!

The rules for being a foster parent in my community allow for up to two children under the age of two to share a bedroom with an adult. Kids older than two need to have their own bedroom available. So this public policy makes a case for how new parents with tiny homes can make room for a new family member. A corner of mom and dad's bedroom might become baby's area if the room is large enough. You could screen it off or perhaps install the equivalent of a hospital cubicle curtain to divide the space. Even if a baby is across the hallway from mommy and daddy the cries are going to wake them up so sharing a room may not be so outlandish.

Even a home office could share space with the new nursery if necessary. Some color schemes are appropriately gender neutral and still fun enough for a baby. Try apple green, aqua and warm brown. Look at white, orange and sunflower yellow. Denim blue and red is another classic combo that will satisfy an adult usage and an infant's theme. There are no hard and fast rules against using blue for girls, but I don't think too many folks would put their little guy in a pink room. Other than that color there are hundreds of other color family options.

The bottom line is that babies come along and there is no "perfect" time to become a parent. You have to make babies when it is physically appropriate or more accurately stated: Women must abide by their biological time clock. Despite the lousy economy and uncertain future, we are smack in the middle of a wonderful birth explosion! No more wonderful event can ever take place in your life