16w4d - Not as bad as it seemed

I went to a baby shower on Saturday morning / afternoon. It was really fun to go for a variety of reasons. First of all, I really like the mom-to-be, so it was fun celebrating with her. Secondly, I am friendly with most of the people who were there, so it was a nice social thing to do. But mostly, it was a good lesson on things I need.

After the shower, I was inspired. So once I got back home, I pulled Hubby-poo away from Mario Kart and dragged him to Buy Buy Baby (which, fortunately, just opened up in my neighborhood – score!). Let me tell you, I totally expected the day to end in tears. I figured I would become incredibly overwhelmed, that my senses would become completely overly stimulated, and that I would freak out over the amount of stuff I needed to do. None of those things happened.

For those who have never heard of Buy Buy Baby, it’s a baby store owned by the same company as Bed Bath and Beyond. The store is structured identically. There is a big square you walk around, with partitioned off sections each filled with a theme of items (diaper-changing stuff, linens, etc.). The whole back of the store was filled with beautiful furniture displays. So it was really easy to navigate. Also, a few sales people came up to us to ask us if we had any questions. It was Saturday afternoon, and the store had a good amount of people in it, and there were still sales people available. They apparently have a registry service where you have a personal shopper / consultant who helps you select what you want. They don’t work on commission, so they weren’t pushy. One lady even told us that if we don’t like the selection of cribs that they had she would recommend other places to check out.

Anyway, we plan to start with a crib. I have the book Baby Bargains, which reviews all of the baby stuff on the market (and is updated every year). I brought the book with me to the store, but was not ready to delve into it yet. We just wanted to see what was there. When I got home, I looked at their website and went through the options that were available. Unfortunately they only listed three brands on the site and only one of them got better than a C rating. But I am pretty sure the store had more than that, so I will have to check them out. The book did warn that Buy Buy Baby did not have a very good website.

After that, we’ll look into car seat and pack-n-play options. We’re not going to bother with a bassinet, we’ll just get the sleeper attachment for the PnP and use that for the first few weeks / months. We don’t need a dresser, because we just plan to use my old dresser. It’s not particularly nice or well-constructed, but we can mount a changing pad to the top of it pretty easily and we already have it. Hooray for one less thing to buy! We’ll probably save the stroller until the end, because that choice seems REALLY hard to me, and also the kid won’t need it for a while anyway. Beyond that, I haven’t really thought of anything.

Oh, but I didn’t leave the store in tears. I left there feeling like I could definitely handle it. And since the store is so close by, it seems totally manageable to go there after work or as many times as I need to. Now, I still need to get the house in shape. My goal is to have the office converted to a guest bedroom by the end of February (which involves painting, packing up some stuff, moving furniture, and getting rid of furniture). Then paint / begin to decorate the nursery in March / April.