The Pendulum Swings

If you'd asked me a year ago, kids were a long way off in our future. I just wasn't ready for it. But, thanks to friends with cool toddlers, adorable nephews and niece, and eavesdropping on the lives of real-life moms via their blogs the biological clock started ticking. Before I quit my job Sweetie and I came up with a time-frame for when we would start trying to add little ones into our lives. (That timeframe is top-secret security clearance... when you see me in maternity clothes you can start to ask).

Well, I think I may be ready to push that date back some as a result of my experiences this morning. We're attending a baby shower on Friday. It's for a co-worker of Sweetie. We're friendly with them, but not really close. So I head on up to Babies 'R Us this morning, where they are registered, to buy them a gift. I had it all planned out, I would be at the store right at opening time so I could get this out of the way and get on with my day.

As I entered the store the clock started ticking louder... look at all the cute clothes! The toys! The plastic toys you can chew on without worry! Forty-five minutes later, my views had changed, in large part due to the fact that it was forty-five minutes later.

It should have been a simple task: Print out the registry, select a gift that costs what I want to spend, be on my way. But there were no gifts available at that magic number. No problem, there are lots of gifts available at lower prices. This is even better than the original plan - I can buy one "practical" thing and one "fun" thing... that's always nice to do for a baby shower, because it's too easy to just get sucked into the cute stuff, and then the kid has five million onesies but no baby bottles.

So I select the "practial" item and then go in search of the "fun" item. The registry CLAIMS to list locations of the items, but I lapped the entire toy section at least five times and could not find any of the three items I had my eye on. I did find ONE item, but it was a bit above what I was wanting to spend.

Time to adjust the plan. I'll do cute clothes instead of a toy. It's going to be a girl, after all, and they have registered for a pair of infant shoes. I MAY have found the infant shoes, they basically matched the description and were the correct brand name, but the product numbers didn't match. There was no rhyme or reason to the clothes displayed and the clothes listed on the registry. And there seemed to be NONE of the infant essentials on display - onesies and t-shirts and such. Given that these are acquaintances and I'm not sure how particular they are, I decide it's best to not stray off the list. What to do? What to do?

I saw some practical things on the list that looked like they might also qualify as fun, but couldn't actually find them in the store. Then I decide to work backwards. I had found one of the toys they'd registered for earlier. THAT would be the fun item, and we'd rethink the practical item to get them. I find the perfect item on the list and go to search for it. Can't find it. Find perfect item #2. I don't think I found it, as what I found that matched the description cost about five times more than what was listed on the registry.

FINALLY decided to go for a bunch of little stuff: a package of pacifiers, a feeding spoon, a bath thermometer. Stumbled to the check-out and got the hell out of there. It was bad enough for just one visit, I can't imagine having to go shopping there on a regular basis. Or forcing my friends through that experience.

Hopefully my mood will change before we have one of our own.