Secret Agent Josephine

I finally registered. What an experience. I’ve been putting it off because Toby is always too busy and I really really don’t fancy doing it all by myself. There are so many choices! I’m completely bumboozled over what stroller to pick, what brand of baby monitor, what kind of lotions… there are a zillion and one choices for me to make right now and I feel this incredible pressure to make the right one. Should it be the super high end bugaboo cameleon or the no nonsense Graco Metrolite, the combi or the PegPerego and why don’t they come in better color combinations? Should I go ahead and fill my house up with stuff like this and this? Do I really need it and where am I going to put it? And PLEASE, somebody tell me what kind of breast pump to buy. Those things are scary!

Thankfully my family came to the rescue. There is nothing quite like those with experience (like a mom and a sister-in-law with kids) and a few fun loving nieces to make the experience a whole lot better. I think I would have had a nervous breakdown if I had tried to do this alone. There’s no way in hell I would take Toby with me. We nearly got a divorce before we even got married when we were trying to pick out what kind of silverware to register for our wedding. Toby and I do not shop well together. I’m just happy he’s leaving this to me because I cannot possibly bring him up to speed on all the complicated decisions that go into having a baby. He was completely blown away by the fact that you need to buy one kind of car seat for a baby and then another when they reach 22 pounds. So many car seats! I could see the blood wash from his face as he did the math in his head. I think it’s very stressful for him right now because he feels a lot of pressure to be able to provide for us. Every time I ask him what color canvas I should get the stroller in, his eyes glaze over and he mentally goes to another place. He just can’t do this with me

And it’s a good thing he didn’t come with me!!! Has anybody ever registered at BabysRUs and experienced the torture that is their intercom system? Oh my goodness!!!! #@@!!$#%!!! It’s worse than Home Depot. Every other minute there is this horribly loud squawking and squealing sound that reverberates over the very large warehouse type building and echos around in circles inside my head. I cannot even think when it is going off, let alone talk. I have no memory of what they were saying. It was just loud and intrusive and it gave me a headache. Toby is very sensitive to sound. He wouldn’t have lasted a minute. I seriously thought about going up to the front desk and complaining but I didn’t want to be that kind of customer so I suffered with squinted eyes instead. It’s worse than trying to talk in our house on a sunny Sunday afternoon when the Harley brigade goes by on the highway outside. You just have to wait for them to finish and then carry on when they are done. There’s no competing. So you can imagine what it was like trying to figure out what kind of breast pump might be best when the squawking was going on. I gave up. I tried to call my sister-in-law up north to ask her what brand but I couldn’t even make a phone call with noise like that. I expect baby’s crying and kids screaming but not the Chinese Opera on the loud speaker system. Sigh. I just hate shopping sometimes.

It was really fun though to do this with my family. The store was huge and it took us over an hour to walk from one side to the next. By the end of the night my feet felt like pin cushions and a nice dinner at a nearby restaurant was in order. I tend to make my decisions based on aesthetics instead of practicality, so it was really nice to get input from my mom and sister-in-law. I still chose the muted colored baby mobile when I know infants like bright colors though. I’m so selfish! I just don’t want my house filled up with brightly colored plastic crap! I can feel it sneaking in already. Soon my life will no longer be my own. I just have to accept this. I let my mom use the scan gun and I have a feeling she zapped a few upc codes behind my back. So if my registry looks really long (to anybody who’s reading this and shopping for me) I’m really not that greedy. I just don’t have a clue and my mom thinks I need EVERYTHING! Do I really need 20 boxes of breast pads? What are they anyway?

My nieces were also a big help. Rapunzel gave me sound advice on everything. She even popped a few things into the cart that I had to take back later. “But you NEEEEED these, Auntie!” she says with big eyes when I find the roll of plastic bags for disposing of stinky diapers.” I know I do. But I’m just not quite ready to fill my house up with this stuff yet. So far I’ve got every baby thing I’ve gotten stuffed into a cupboard awaiting the big move from my office to Toby’s office.

That’s another thing. When do I get to move into the new baby’s room? I do not know. Toby promised me October but I am letting this battle lie right now. I just think if I nagged him one more time, he might completely lose it. It reminds me of when we were getting married and he was painting his car on the day before the wedding when he was supposed to get it done months before. You just can’t force Toby to do things in a timely manner. If I do, it will backfire. He knows how I feel about this. I’ve had a few weepy breakdowns already. But I just have to persevere and realize that I could have it a lot worse. I know a lot of my friends want to come over and kick his butt into gear but the reality of our situation is that he is financially providing for me 100% and I think that is taking everything out of him right now. It’s not an easy road but it’s the one we’ve chosen.

I know some of you might think, “well geeze, skip the $800* stroller and have some quality family time instead!” and you have a good point. But I think personally, Toby would rather I spend the $$$ than be hassled with all this. Even if I did spend less I don’t think that would exactly translate into more time with him instead. That’s just the nature of being married to a workaholic. Maybe I doesteth protesteth too much. It’s just the way the cookie crumbles around here.

*not that I have to justify it (but I want to because I grew up in a trailer in the sticks), I’ve already saved up the $800 from freelancing, babysitting and a generous gift from my inlaws. Thank you inlaws.

p.s. I totally welcome advice (and assvice) on baby products. Send me an email, blow up my comment box, whatever I love it! The more I know, the less I have to scour forums. And thank you! Thank you for all the advice and helpful hints you’ve given me already. I intend to write everyone back who has sent me an email. (I’m just a wee bit behind) If I don’t write you back by this week, it’s because my email got hijacked by your spam protection software. Those spambots do not like the word “secret” in an email address.