Monday, April 6, 2009

buying things for someone you've never met

This weekend marked our second attempt to get our heads around what stuff we need/want to make a baby registry. I've felt pressure to have a baby registry, let alone fill it with things that I feel we NEED rather than want. And forget putting items on there that I have any opinion about. If it wasn't for a few key friends who have already had a kid or two, we'd be totally underwater on knowing what to add to the list.

And we've realized that people who have kids in the suburbs in a house, have completely different ideas about what is 'necessary' than someone with a kid in an 900 sq ft or smaller apartment. My idea of necessary is whatever I need to keep her fed, clothed, clean and mildly entertained. And of course, within what I think are fairly small boundaries of 'need' includes a multitude of options. I keep wishing that everything I see in the store had a little arrow above the ones that *I* need to get. Things that someone with more experience and less of a sales-angle will believe that the way we want to raise our daughter will be a good purchase.

But there isn't. There's enough advice out there to sink a ship. So we're doing our best to figure out what kind of ship we're on.

Normally I'd research the heck out of everything I'm interested in. I've resisted doing a lot of research on baby things. It seems that for every source that says "A is good choice" there's another of equal reputation that says "A is ok but B is a better choice". Which leaves me doing what I've been doing, asking the people I know who have actual children and who (as parents) we respect the way they are bringing up their kids.

I'm immensely grateful for these friends to tell us whatever they think we need to hear or what they wish they heard before they went shopping.

Somewhere between my desire to have a baby stroller that is less than 5lbs and Ismael's desire to only have to buy one stroller from the time she's born until she's 4 years old -- we'll figure something out. I'm just glad we don't have a car, so figuring out what car seat to buy isn't an issue. My lovely cousin and his wife gave us their infant car seat so I can give that to my dad so we can at least get her home from the hospital.

Now we just have to have a place to put her down to sleep, since we have a room full of baby clothes, and apparently I'll be able to make her food for her. So I guess figuring out which crib is the next thing to tackle... It would be so much easier if Tiny Dancer would just tell me what she likes. Ah well, I can't wait to meet her for her to tell me which crib she likes!

No comments:

Post a Comment