Baby Registry Musings

After two weekends and numerous trips back-forth across Durham, Shannon and I completed the baby registry Sunday. Let me tell you the whole experience was surreal. I felt conflicted in many ways that were not necessarily conducive to enjoying the "baby experience."

First, I unfortunately felt I was on a "mission" during the shopping. With all the work to do at home, I was trying to be as efficient as possible so we could get home and tackle other projects. We had to move from car seats to strollers to bath items as soon as a decision was made. There wasn't time to "ooh and ahh" over clothes or toys.

My overly zealous efficiency was compounded by the information gleaned from reading books (wait for my February book list) and surfing the net. A lot of "experts" say 90% of the baby stuff is not necessary, if not completely useless. I happen to agree. It is all a scheme to extract more money from your rapidly shrinking bank account. Shannon's Dad said several times during weekend #1 "you don't need that....you didn't have that and you turned out just fine." I took those words to heart and was only focusing on necessities. (Everyone break into song...."Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book.)

Well, Shannon had to slap me upside the head with a car seat before I realized my attitude was making her mad. She wanted to browse...looking at toys and dresses....not necessarily to add to the registry but just to look and have fun. Amazing how much more fun I had when I lightened up.

Then there were the stores. I thought Target was amazing. It was clean, organized, and focused on the essentials. Some nice folks offered their "expert" advice too. The best part about Target was we were able to register for some good chocolate (Shannon) and a 12 pack of beer (Jon) as a joke. Babies R Us was okay. Besides the employees manning the registry desk, everyone else was completely unhelpful. We had to spend extra time at home surfing the net trying to understand what car seats went with which strollers. The store also was CROWDED!! Talk about a zoo!! We arrived just after opening each time, but within an hour the store was full. It's really hard to lift car seats, test push strollers, and examine cribs when the aisles are crammed with 100's of people. Then there was Baby Depot. It's the store within the store....associated with Burlington Coat Factory. We went there specifically to look at cribs. All they had was crap. We came and went within 5 minutes. Very disappointing because one of the advice books recommeded Burlington Coat Factory as a source for good cribs. Looking at the rest of the store on the way out, I saw cheap merchandise, dingy lighting, and poor organization. I never will enter that store again.

Finally, I was disappointed with the limited shopping options for twins. I know twins aren't that common, but they are becoming more prevalent as fertility assistance becomes more popular. You think stores would start carrying a wider variety of items for twins. The case in point was the stroller. Shannon really wanted matching fabrics for the car seat, pack n play, and stroller. Not cool when you learn that the stroller you like doesn't come in that fabric. The matching stroller was a MONSTER that cost an extra $100. The matching stroller wasn't worth the extra money or the huge thighs we'd develop pushing it around. We had to go back and select a car seat/stroller (the one we liked) combo with matching fabrics. We decided to keep the original pack n play even though it would no longer match....Shannon really like the teddy bear mobile that came with it.

I'm sure I could come up with more, but it is time to go home. In the end, we registered at Target and Babies R Us. Overall the whole process was a lot of fun once I chilled out.