Many faces of Xuan Xuan - the Hardcore hand me down Baby

Presenting the many faces of Xuan Xuan... and he is getting a bit rounder, looking more like En when he was about the same age.. even his brownish Beckham hairstyle resembles En... one day I will put their pictures side by side and you will see the similarities.. Then again, they are brother hor, so what's the big deal about looking the similar?Duh..

Xuan is really a hardcore hand me down baby, see his nice blue sweater is a hand me down gift that Aunt Sharon gave to En. I mean, back then with En, it was bad enough with quite some hand me down clothes, and scrooge parents like us even went bargain hunting at second hand baby store to look for items that other parents put up for recycling.. how desperate hor..

But I feel there is nothing wrong with getting second hand stuff for babies so long as the condition is good, and I am sad to hear that Babytown is shutting down its recycling operation.. We had hoped to be able to put some of our stuff up for sale when we no longer need them, after all we did benefited from their store.. see the infant ca seat cum rocker Xuan is sleeping in in the the above pic, we got that in excellent condition for 50 bucks, and that was an instrumental piece in training En to travel in infant seat and later his car seat, it was also great in rocking En to sleep when he was in a tantrum.. We also got a great spare pram at 80 bucks.. How I will miss Babytown, which facilitated the sale of recycled items and ensuring the condition of the item.. How will we be able to get great items at a fraction of the price from now on?

Now, Xuan not only inherited his Bro's clothes, he also inherited all the other baby stuff, ala the cot, the new pram travel system, the playpen, the baby monitor, the wall posters, ..the list goes on.. at least En had some new stuff.. I am now wondering besides the few new pieces of clothes we bought for Xuan, what else did Xuan have that was new.. *scratch head*.. eh, not much indeed.. so bad hor. Thank goodness I bought a new set of very nice cot set for Xuan, like I did for En.. that is something lah..

Well, my philosophy is, scrooge on some, and splurge on others.. then the bill will work out to be quite balanced..

So far, we have bought quite a number of second hand books for En, and that is fine since eventually all the books get worn out or chewed out. Till now, I still can't live with the fact that En is close to totally destroying his Baby Einstein mega book which probably costs over 50 bucks, a very nice and useful gift thanks to Aunt Sai..

But we also splurged on his Baby Leapfrog, easily 80 bucks sans the books and tapes...Simple things like crayons, we splurge on the supposedly non toxic and washable Crayola for his doodling which costs at least 2 times the usual cost of crayons lor..

In the end it is all about balance and sensibility.. so poor Xuan Xuan will have to live with the current state of super hand me downs for now, I am sorry to say even his boardbooks and toys will be hand me down (but dun worry, Mummy did buy REAL cool and great toy stuff for En) so while they are hand me downs, they are superb hand me down..

I am the elder child - no hand me down; Hubby is the only son - dun think he has much of hand me downs, so I do feel for Xuan.. ok.. once Mummy finds time away from his tight feeding routine, I will go get a fabu-whammy-super-duber toy for Xuan Xuan, maybe for his Valentine's Day gift since he is such a sweetheart..this I promise..