Baby Registry

It has been a pretty stressful couple weeks around here, hence the long delay between postings. Things are looking up now, and I just keep reminding myself to take it one day at a time.

To help lift me out of my funk, I decided to work on the fun project of setting up our baby registry. Actually, I thought it was going to be a fun project. It was almost as painful as shopping for electronics! Louis and I spent a full day perusing the baby stores to get an idea of items we liked. Of course, we set up a spreadsheet to keep ourselves organized. In the stores, we would find items we really liked (the duck and frog sheets!), only to come home and learn that the items we loved had horrible ratings and reviews online. Apparently the cute printed frog and duck items fall apart after just a couple washes, they're made cheaply, and they don't fit standard mattresses very well.

The most difficult part of shopping for baby items is that just about everything is toxic or dangerous for the baby on some level. The Mothering discussions and message boards were full of warnings about all kinds of problems with lead, formaldehyde, toxic off-gasing, etc. Yes, I know that crowd tends to be kind of extreme, but I definitely believe a lot of their points are valid (like flame-retardants in mattresses being connected to SIDS) and many are super well-informed and have done tons of research. It's actually rather upsetting to know that American safety standards are pretty low when it comes to baby items. So, Louis and I figured out what was most important to us, and decided to just do our best when it comes to providing a clean and safe place for our baby to live.

It's kind of funny to shop for baby items with Louis, because he was raised with such a minimal amount of "stuff" as a baby and child (I mean, he slept on the floor until he was an adult). Every so often, he would stop me to ask what an item was and what the point of it was. Pottery Barn items aside, he is pretty much still a minimalist when it comes to choosing the "necessary" items a baby will need.

Realizing, of course, that this whole process is new to both of us and that we reserve the right to change our minds at any time, we did come up with a few things we both agree to strongly. These include wanting to home birth, co-sleep, breastfeed, cloth diaper, and baby-wear. Baby, your parents are a couple of crazy hippies! We are trying to keep massive amounts of plastic out of the house and we purposely did not register for things like a bathtub, stroller, diaper bag, monitor, or play mats, in hopes of keeping the clutter to a minimum. I've been paying attention to the lifestyles of homebirthing families for years, and if I have consistently seen a method or item or strategy that works for family after family, that's good enough for me.

Even though we're only at the halfway mark, the whole registry idea came about because Louis' boss and co-workers are already hounding him about a list of items he needs/wants for the baby. I wonder what they'll think about our requests :) It's so funny to watch another generation try to figure out the new "natural parenting" craze. "What do you mean you want books and wooden toys? But what can I buy you from Toys R Us?" Ay.

So, anyway, our baby registry is now live at Amazon.com under either of our names. While the items we picked would certainly be nice to have (and much appreciated), we know all our baby really needs is to be surrounded by loving and caring friends and family. I think the rest will just work itself out. I mean, Louis turned out pretty much okay :)