When we first got engaged people told us how fun it would be registering. Instead it was a pain because there was so much stuff to get then they would be out of stock or get clearanced out so I’d have to update the registries all the time and then hardly anyone got us stuff off of them anyway and we ended up using left over wedding money to complete them!
I heard from many people that planning for a baby is a lot more fun than planning for a wedding. Again, I disagree. Planning our wedding was the most fun I think I’ve ever had! I loved it! With a baby you really can’t plan much. We knew our wedding date 16 months in advance. I’m 6 months pregnant and even when I get to be 9 months pregnant I still won’t have a clue what day our baby will come, what labor will be like, what our baby will be like, if it’s healthy, how we’ll be as parents, etc, etc, etc. There is really very little you can plan for when it comes to being pregnant! I don’t even know how I’m going to look tomorrow! haha!
In Valdosta we are limited with places that carry baby items it’s either Target or ToysRUs. So we planned a day to go to Jacksonville and register at BabysRUs!
Before leaving at 7 am I made Zach take a couple new pictures of how pregnant I am! This is first thing in the morning too so my tummy is a lot bigger at night than this. I am fully wearing all maternity clothes now 🙂 This is at 22 Weeks Pregnant:
Mom met us in Jacksonville and I’m so glad she did as I really want her involved as much as possible! I spent a lot of time making a big master list of things we needed to have on our registry and researching top baby products.
We got there at around 9:30 (Mom had been there since 8:50!) and after the lady took a million years explaning to us how to register we were off!
Zach has this idea in his mind that Baby Einstein is the liberal media’s way of brainwashing our children so he has been very anti-baby einstein stuff! But I got him to break down and register for a dvd 🙂
A big reason I wanted to go to the store to register is that they allow you to test everything! Zach and Mom did a lot of the testing since they are more ADHD type people who get bored easily and need entertaining haha! I think here they were trying to figure out how to make the stroller convert from infant to toddler. They also had fun seeing if we could easily break down the pack-and-plays (NONE of them are easy to break down! What a joke!).
This day was the first time I’ve felt a little twinge of “man I wish we knew the sex.” Most baby items are gender specific and neutral stuff is soooo ugly. It made it that much more difficult to register because we didn’t want anything neutral so we ended up saying NO CLOTHES at all!!!
Since we do a lot of traveling a baby carrier thing is a must! This is supposed to be the lightest weight one which is important for me 🙂 Even if I look like an idiot wearing it
All in all registering for baby stuff is WAY WAY WAY harder than for wedding stuff! I mean with a wedding, everyone knows what a PLATE is ya know? But who the heck knows what a breast pump is and what all you need to go with it? And how do you tell which bottle will be best? And what is the best way to take a baby’s temperature? There are so many things we will learn through experience and it’s impossible to know what we really need, really want, and will really use when the baby actually gets here!
We called it quits after 3 1/2 hours. I’m so impressed with all of us, especially Zach, because we took what was a stressful difficult situation and didn’t fuss at each other! I was dying of sleepiness and hunger by the end and the three of us ate at Maggiano’s as our grand finale 🙂
Once I got home I looked over the online registry to see how we did. I tried to replace items that said they were only avaiable in a BabysRUs store with ones that were available online. Then I looked over the items we registered for a checked their safety ratings and consumer ratings. I thought after all of that that our list was pretty awesome…little did I know that a couple days later my life would be registered to death!
That Monday I went to our local ToysRUs to see if it would pull up the BabysRUs registry so people here (who are internet deficient) can buy things for us from the small selection the toy store has in baby items. Lucky for me it worked! A couple of the bigger items were actually available in the store too! Our montior and pack-and-play! I thought that was pretty good so I just went through the store trying to replace some items that said they were only available online with things people could purchase for us there in the store.
After about an hour I headed to Target very optimistic because surely they would have an awesome selection of baby things and they’d probably even carry Chicco, which is the brand we love for most of our bigger items. It took them 30 minutes to sign me up in the system then once I finally got the scanner they only have 3, yes THREE, rows of baby!!!!
I couldn’t believe it! It was that moment that it hit me. I am a big town girl stuck in a small town!!! Other people from here wouldn’t think twice about it. They don’t research everything to make sure they get the best (or closest to the best without spending a million dollars), they don’t care about brands, they just say “oh that’s cute” and SCAN. The only big items they had to choose from were either Graco or Eddie Bauer. Some Graco stuff is ok…but I was raised to LOVE L.L.Bean and loathe Eddie Bauer. I will never own Eddie Bauer stuff (yes Dad, you trained me well)! So what was the point in registering there? Basically all I’d be scanning is a couple bottles and a few blankets.
So I voided out the stuff in the scanner, turned it into the girl at the counter and called some 1800 number to erase that junk! We are now OFFICIALLY only registered at BabysRUs and ToysRUs.
That whole Target episode took me over an hour and then I had to head BACK to ToysRUs because I needed to register for as much stuff as possible there! People in Valdosta just don’t, for the most part, shop online and to avoid getting another $450 worth of pure crap from Belk like we did for the wedding I knew I needed to have lots to choose from at the toy store. Especially since plenty of people will think I’m an idiot for not having a list at Target.
After another two hours I am FINISHED forever with this mess! I scanned a ton, ton, ton of toys and books because I know a lot of people won’t want to get us gift cards (as I hate buying them too!) so they can get us cute, fun toys that we can return for gift cards to get the bigger items if we don’t get them! Enjoy our little list of things and if you happen to be invited to a shower I’ll love you forever for shopping online 🙂
And yes, after my long day I could hardly walk but I did take a picture of myself. I worked hard and deserve to have it remembered!!!
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Don’t stress about all of the little things! Once the baby gets here you can figure out what you like and don’t like. It is very overwhelming at first! You will be making many trips to Babies R Us once the baby arrives. You may not enjoy it now, but it will be well worth it in a few months when you have a beautiful baby!
I really miss you guys!! Cade said that he would love to meet you!!!!