Using the Internet is one of the greatest tools for keeping our sanity

Technology is going to help and it’s going to hinder. I knew going into this we were going to have all kinds of baby equipment and technology that was going to help us. Before it could help though it was going to give me headaches.

We have all opened a box of something new and located that 600 page, 10 language instruction manual just to get discouraged almost immediately. So when Mandi started to push me to get the big box items out of the basement and the garage about two months before Mason was born, I cringed. I consider my self fairly handy but very short with directions. And I knew that the items in those boxes were much bigger and would require hours of construction.

I sat on the living room looking at the rubrics cube that is a car seat, swing, bouncer, play seat, high chair, and all the other ridiculous things that are supposed to make raising a baby easier for mom and dad. I had that "eureka moment." Everything is on YouTube. I wondered if people who own these plastic marvels post how-to instructions. So I typed in the name of each product, and one-by-one videos came up that were not only real world demonstrations from the same companies that couldn’t write directions on how to turn on a light switch. And guess what, they are really well done.

My most memorable instance of using YouTube to date is putting Mason in his car seat for the ride home from the hospital. This time was my most anticipated and feared moment, even the birth didn’t worry me as much as getting the trip home right.

So there I was, sitting on the floor of the hospital room with what looks like the most simple contraption in front of me. Does this strap go over his arm or leg? How do this thing work? I kept asking myself these questions. Then it hit me that the hospital has wifi and I used it a lot for the announcement, and I will touch on that in a few days. I grabbed my smart phone and typed in the the seat name and instantly had a demonstration of how to correctly load a baby into a car seat. Granted, the demonstration was using a doll and not a screaming 7 pound octopus, that I was afraid to break.

To this point no one thing has outweighed the use of YouTube. We haven’t used it for anything related to raising Mason but for all the gadgets, it's been a sanity saver.