This past weekend, we finally registered for items for Wolverine Baby. Ray and I are both planners, so we did extensive research before registering, and I think that was helpful in a lot of ways. We looked up the big items like the stroller and car seat on www.consumerreports.com, and we solicited advice from our friends who've had kids recently. Honestly, the most useful advice we got was from friends who not only told us what they thought we should get but also included their own review of items they'd received.
Just sitting down to go over what we needed for the baby was kind of overwhelming to me. How can something so tiny need so much stuff? I guess you could say that she doesn't need that much stuff. All she really needs is a place to sleep, a car seat so the hospital will let us bring her home, and diapers. But in trying to come up with a list of items we should get her, I got overwhelmed on more than one occasion and pulled a Scarlett O'Hara. I have dreamed several times that Wolverine arrived and expressed her disappointment that we were so woefully unprepared for her. (I frequently dream that she has arrived with a full set of teeth and the ability to talk to us as if she is already an adult - pregnancy dreams are bizarre!)
Ray, on the other hand, seemed to be much more comfortable with process. He informed me one night that he intended to be the commanding officer of the baby registry, and I was to act as his NCO. When I asked for clarification about what exactly that meant, he said, "I'll come up with the master plan, and you'll be the NCO who executes the plan perfectly."
So, after compiling a list of things we needed to register for, we headed to Babies R Us. Let me tell you, those people take registering for a baby very seriously. They have a special desk set up, and they wanted all sorts of information (including whether or not this was our first child and if we were adopting). After what felt like a twenty-minute interview, they handed us a registry gun and sent us to the back of the store where the larger items are.
As we worked our way to the front, we divided up the labor. I had the checklist, and he had the gun. On the car accessory aisle, I noted that we needed some sort of snuggler head cushion thing for when Wolverine is still an infant. So we began looking at those, and all of the sudden, Ray exclaimed, "The Snuzzler! We have to get that! That name is awesome!" And that's pretty much how we worked through every aisle. We did have occasional discussions about which sheets were softest or which diaper genie we should go with, but for the most part, I called out items we needed, and Ray selected the version he liked and scanned it. I noticed, though, as we progressed through the store, that he consistently picked out very pink, very girly things. This really sort of surprised me. Ray is a good guy, and I have no doubt that he will be nothing short of fantastic as a father. But he doesn't really do pink or girly. He even said we "need pink washcloths" so that he didn't mix them up with the white ones he uses for the boat. Truly, the only item he insisted be unisex was the diaper bag. He said emphatically, "I don't want it to look like a woman's purse." That seems like a reasonable request to me!
When we got to the wall of bottles, I stood there for about 30 seconds just staring and then finally said, "I cannot do this. I have no idea what kind of bottle to get. We'll have to come back to this." I realized then that none of our friends had offered advice about what kind of bottles to use. (And when I consulted three of them later, I got three different answers, so I'm no closer to knowing now...)
We registered at Target a couple of days later, and that was a totally different experience. They sent us over to the registry computers where we entered our data quickly and then took the proof of registry to the customer service desk. They handed us a gun with the simple instruction of "scan the barcode on the product, not on the shelf!"
At Target, we filled in what we had missed at BRU without any major problems. Ray did get a little frustrated because their gun didn't work as well as he wanted, but we managed to get it worked out. There was really only one moment that we (okay, I) struggled. We were trying to register for things for Wolverine to wear right when we get her home. We'd already scanned sleep sacks, and then I suggested that we also get some of the long-sleeved, long-pants pajama onesie things. Ray said, "But we just got some sleep sacks. Do we need these, too? Isn't she going to sleep in the sleep sack?" He was asking because he was genuinely curious. But the plain and simple fact was that I just didn't know. So I said, "I don't know. I don't know what she'll sleep in, but I just want her to sleep." And then I began crying because I felt completely inept and unprepared. I want so badly to know exactly what to do to take care of her and to make sure she's safe and happy and healthy, but I realized that I don't know right now how to get her to sleep. Ray handled this meltdown just like he's handled all the others - like a champ. He gave me a hug and told me it'd be okay and we'd figure it all out. And then he scanned the pajamas.
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