Baby products I never understood

1. Baby toothbrushes. Seriously. Kids have little teeth. Why attempt to brush them with a tiny toothbrush? The logic behind this escapes me. Especially if your kids enjoy wiggling while you brush. I've been buying 10 packs of regular sized toothbrushes for several years now. Everyone that plays their cards right gets to pick their own color and everyone that's in the bedroom watching football and playing chess can use the leftover purple toothbrush no one wanted for the next six months. But everyone's toothbrush head is normal sized. Because as long as I'm stuck helping them brush I'm not prepared to use a thimble to put out a forest fire. I've also found that regular toothbrushes last longer than Hello Kitty toothbrushes. No offense to the Hello Kitty people but I'm pretty sure the bristles shouldn't fall out after a month. Last month, while her Kindergarten class was discussing dentists, the visiting "Mr. Dentist" tried to sabotage my scheme by sending my five year old home with a Cinderella toothbrush with a head the size of a dime. Mr. Dentist apparently thinks I have time to burn at bedtime.

2. Not buying stuff in bulk. Seriously. Sam's/Costco. Way cheaper. What are you thinking buying wipes at the grocery store? Don't even get me started on the diapers. I'm also a fan of the produce. Before I had children, I never understood how anyone could eat that many grapes before they went bad. Now, I know firsthand that 2 giant cantaloupes will still mean we run out by Thursday.

3. Giant diaper bags. We own a diaper bag. For that matter, we may even own two diaper bags. I can't begin to describe the overall waste of money those things have been for us. The best idea I ever came up with was leaving wipes and diapers in the trunk of every car we own. Which is actually only 2 cars but sounds way more impressive when you say it's every car you own. We also have a mini backpack in which a backup small container of wipes, 3 diapers, a change of clothes and sweatshirt permanently reside. We only use that backpack when we are actually entering an establishment that we don't intend to exit within the next hour or two. For everything else, there's Mastercard. And the backseat of our car. If we take my husband's 4-Runner, we even have a changing table. It's called the trunk. And the beauty of the toddler sized backpack is that the toddler that needs the diaper change can carry his own diaper bag. Unless you are in the middle of an amusement park because then, let it be known, that kid won't carry the backpack more than three feet before it becomes an anchor dragging his soul down into the bowels of hell. But that's okay. Because if you're in an amusement park with a diaper wearing toddler and you don't have a stroller to toss that thing in, that's some shoddy planning on your part.

4. White pants in size 6-12 months.

5. White pants in size 12-18 months.

6. White pants in size 18-24 months. Strangely, white onesies in every size make perfect sense. Is there anything more perfectly lovely than a baby in a fresh white onesie? Seriously, just thinking about the little snaps at the bottom makes me think I need to procreate.

7. Baby hairbrushes. My husband and I produce hairy babies. Beautiful baby fine hairy babies but still hairy. They required hair brushes. Not oversized toothbrushes disguised as hairbrushes. And the baby isn't brushing their own hair. So why is the handle made for a baby's hand? Give a girl something to grip. Like, say, a normal sized handle.

8. Baby bottles that can't go in the dishwasher. Do people just have extra time on their hands or what? I don't care how many bottles you buy, you will end up having to wash them every couple days. Washing bottles gets old fast. The first way to improve that is to buy more bottles. Increasing the rotation increases the time between washing. You know, like when you run out of underwear all the time and decide to buy more to delay doing laundry. The second way to handle the bottle washing is to subcontract the work out. To the dishwasher. Speaking of bottles, there was a kid in my son's class as an infant whose parents got bent out of shape when one of their bottle lids inadvertently got switched with one of our bottle lids. When our bottle lids didn't fit their bottles that put them short one bottle in their rotation. I know this because they started asking everyday for their lid back. But we hadn't even noticed the lid issue. Because we are normal and owned a normal number of bottles. A normal number of bottles being an amount determined by whether or not losing one lid pulls the rug out from under you. Turned out the other parents only owned 4 bottles. But both our kids were like 5 months old and in day care full time. Come again? 4? I couldn't decide if they were just frugal or stupid. Or both. There will be days you don't feel like washing bottles. Buy some extra bottles so you can take a nap instead.

9. Teething biscuits. Are there children actually teething on those things? Because when my kids used them all they did was turn to mush. Almost immediately in fact. One second the kid's holding a cookie. Next second there's brown goo running down the front of their face. Disgusting brown goo I might add. How can the kid teethe on goo? The single best learning to eat solids food in our house was Cheerios. Both our kids loved them and picking them up one at a time kept them happy and busy throughout many a meal out. I miss the days when a handful of Cheerios bought me enough time to have an uninterrupted conversation with another adult.