Cityretreat

Immediately following the marathon yesterday I headed out to do the baby registry. Horrible timing but Bid and I both needed to do it relatively quickly b/c we have showers coming up and KJ offered to help us out.

She is slated to deliver in a couple weeks so our window of opportunity was pretty small. We jumped at the chance to have her on hand to explain all the things we needed but didn't understand why.

Bid and I arrived early, got our scan guns and turned to stare blindly and naively into the infant feeding section. We even approached the shelving before quickly turning away totally confused.

Throughout our time there, several thoughts struck me:
1. There is a tremendous amount of crap out there;
2. It is really overwhelming how much crap there is to choose from;
3. Most of it is plastic and that makes me environmentally disappointed and concerned.

I guess my way of contributing to the solution is that I can't deal with clutter so I will be registering for a minimal amount of the aforementioned #1.

Seriously though, if you didn't make a trip in there yourself, you wouldn't even know the glut of stuff out there. I'd estimate 50 different types of car seats; same with the strollers; and the travel swing, which isn't the same as the full-sized swing or the bouncer. Oy.

And everything is so expensive. I'm not one to really get easily ruffled about the costs of things, especially as I tend to lean towards the nicer things. Admitedly I'm a little bratty. But even I am slightly turned off by the costs of things and the suggested "must haves" on the registry. Does one person really need five different types of strollers (lest you think I'm exaggerating: travel, full-size, umbrella, jogging, convenience stroller are listed on the checklist)?

As I put together the registery I realized there are whole categories I will not include simply because I don't want subject those nice enough to purchase gifts to these options.

Perhaps I'm naive and soon my house will be wall-to-wall with bouncing, swinging, playmats and mobiles.

I'd like to think the little one will survive just fine with only a careful selection of the 'necessities.'