Jerry mentioned in his last post (which I think he wrote with the single goal of making the emotional basket case mother of his unborn child do the ugly cry... seriously, isn't he the best??) that we took one giant leap into Baby Registry Land this past weekend. It was actually remarkably tough for me. Tough as in heart racing, palms sweating as we took the turn off the highway to pull into the store, I have issues. In recent years, my shopping drive has moved in direct conflict with my "hoard all the money" drive which means shopping has lost some of it's sparkle, ok it's lost most of it's sparkle. I also really really really dislike helpful store clerks that have found their life passion in making ridiculous suggestions about things I need or things that would look good on me and when I awkwardly don't take their advice, judge me with their judgey eyes. I also have an actual physical aversion to asking people to buy me things. I hate asking people to buy me things, a lot. I managed to skillfully avoid the wedding registry process by way of some "oh seriously, we already have everything we need and there are homeless puppies who have nothing... give things to the homeless puppies!" sort of action. The problem now is that we have pretty much nothing we need for Baby other than best laid plans and 3 onesies. And many of you know how babies feel about best laid plans. So the fact that there was no getting out of a baby registry was apparent from the first positive test. The only thing saving my sanity slightly was knowing how much other people looooove to buy baby things. I just keep telling myself that creating a baby registry is like giving a gift to all of the amazing, loving, generous people in our lives. They want to buy Baby things and I want to make sure they know what we want!
Back to my sweaty palms and racing heart. You may not remember this but I have strong feelings on the following pregnancy related decisions: 1) not knowing if Baby is a boy or girl, 2) not talking to anyone other than each other about names, and 3) NO TOUCHING IF WE DON'T KNOW EACH OTHER ALREADY!! And I couldn't get over the feeling that I was walking into a giant trap dressed up as a shopping destination. In my mind, I had renamed Babies R Us to That Store Where People Try To Sell You All The Things and Judge Your Unconventional Decisions and Try To Touch You (or TSWPTTSYALTJYUDTTTY for short... not as catchy, I admit).
The actual experience was so much less painful than I thought it would be and other than the tired feet and case of the hungries I developed, it was pretty fun! We registered with a delightful woman who was really excited about our decision not to answer the Boy/Girl question (no judgey eyes!)... no one tried to touch me (apparently when there is a significant number of other baby belly's around, the chances yours will be targeted goes down, love that!)... and the nice woman who set up the registry for us checked in with us twice the entire time in a totally easy going, not here to butt in sort of way. Success!!
But now I'm stuck in All The Things Land. It's a scary place. I learned about The Land of All The Things when I started reading a pretty kick-ass wedding blog back when I was thinking about weddings. This particular blog is devoted with helping women realize they don't need All The Things to have a wonderful wedding and a happy marriage. That was a sentiment I could get behind. Now I'm fighting the inner battle between "oooo I think Baby needs that!!" and "No. Baby does not need a wipe warmer. You don't even want to use the kind of wipes that fit into a wipe warmer. Wipe warmers dry out wipes thus rendering them useless. THAT'S ALL THE THINGS!". So far, I'm winning the inner battle about All The Things and reminding myself that we really don't need (or want) All The Things. Now I'll just hold on to see if All The Things start showing up uninvited because then we might have to look for a bigger house.. or see if homeless puppies have any use for a wipe warmer.
My favorite part of this post is the title - YOU NEED ALL THE THINGS! So funny. This was seriously overwhelming to me too, and I ditto everything you wrote in here!! But I will also add that what helped me is my new bible, "Baby Bargains". It helps break down what you actually need and what you don't, what's worth the extra money and what is not, what's okay to buy used and what is not. I loved it. It helps those of us are who are hoarders of our money ;-)
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