long, but productive weekend. (NOW W/ PICS)

Welcome back to the working week people!  I'm sure you're all happy to be back.  Lots of good stuff happened this weekend, let's get to it, shall we?

First up, Saturday, my wife and I decided to go do some shopping and get some stuff out of the way.  My wife is still not eating everything she wants to, and had at first opted to grab lunch at her go to pregnancy spot for food, Arby's.  Now, that's not to say she especially loves Arby's or anything. Normally, we're not fast food eaters.  But whatever it is about a plain Arby's Roast Beef sandwich, she's able to eat it and it doesn't cause any nausea.  She pretty much was only able to eat those through the first trimester though, and I can’t imagine she’ll ever want to eat Arby’s again, let alone drive past one.  But I’m getting off topic.  My original point was that we opted to try something she hadn’t had since pre-pregnancy. We ended up at a Noodles and Company (yes, still fast food sort of, but whatever…) and she was able to get something there.  Just the ability to eat anything but Arby’s and plain toast is awesome.  It definitely opens up some possibilities for at home meals too.

After lunch, we headed over to the baby store in the same neighborhood.  We wanted to check out a couple different brands of furniture, mainly Baby’s Dream and Young America.  We also wanted to test drive the Cortina stroller by Chicco (which is apparently pronounced “KEY-CO” not “CHEEK-O” like I had assumed).  We played with dressers and cribs, and checked on build quality and materials, and opted to go with the Young America brand.  Not only are they independently tested for safety, but they also use non-toxic paint and materials, and have a very low off-gassing rate.  They’re certified by Greenguard, which is a big deal for me.  Air quality and non-toxic materials are a big deal for me. I’d like my child to be as healthy as possible, and  I’d really like my child to avoid the asthma I had as a child.  I got plenty of time playing sports and running around and riding my bike, but for long sustained activities that my friends could do, it always put me at a disadvantage. And worse than that, I hated my two different inhalers. With a passion. If this can help our child at all avoid some of that, I’ll be happy.  Anyway, back to the story at hand.  We checked the pricing on the Young America furniture we liked, and even though it was on sale, I had a price quote from a local furniture store that also had it on sale over the weekend, and they beat the baby store by about 70 bucks.  However, the baby store had the Infant car seat and stroller travel system even cheaper than I could find it anywhere online, so we did leave the baby store with a travel system.  We made a quick detour home to drop off the travel system and headed over to the furniture store.

Once at the furniture store, we were instantly pounced on by a sales rep. We pulled the “just looking” shtick,  and wandered around the recliners and tried a couple out, as we’ll need a recliner or glider for the nursery.  Recliners are NOT going to work for my wife, unless she were to stick a stool under her feet, as she’s supposed to be able to have support of her legs while nursing. She’s NOT tall, so her feet tend to dangle.  This makes an interesting conundrum, as I am sort of tall. There’s about a foot difference between the two of us, so this chair thing will be interesting finding something that works and is comfortable for both of us.  Why me?  Because I don’t expect her to be the only one to get up and feed the baby.  A couple people have looked at me funny when I mention that, which I don’t understand. This is 2012 right? We’re not still relying on old gender stereotypes are we?  True, I don’t have breasts (at least not that can feed a baby), but that’s what pumps are for.  Look, I’m off track again… Ok, focus, focus, got it.  So, we wandered back to the baby furniture. I had emailed a sales rep on Friday about their sale prices, and stock, and we knew they didn’t have the exact model we wanted on the sales floor, but we had seen it at the baby store. So, with our hovering sales associate mere feet away, I approached her, and asked if she could direct me to the sales associate I had emailed with.  She did, and wandered off in sort of a huff. I think we must have looked like people with a purpose, even though I had tried to get her to leave us alone previously. So our sales rep came over, and he was very nice, knowledgeable and helpful. Everything a lot of them aren’t.  Amazing. So we had some discussions about colors, etc, but came to an agreement on which set we wanted.  We’re very happy with it, and it should last baby until baby heads off to college.  So, we ordered the Crib (which converts to a toddler bed, and a full size eventually) and matching dresser.  That was a big load off our chest. (EDIT: My wife asked that I add pics of what we got.  Please note, the dresser we ordered in the same color as the crib, I just couldn't find it online.)

After that, we headed over to my wife’s parents house to discuss childcare.  We had discussed it between ourselves, and we really wanted them to watch the baby when we have to go back to work.  There a number of reasons for this, but first and foremost, we trust them.  Not that I’m sure there aren’t trustworthy daycares out there. I know there are. I know people that have done or do daycare.  But family is usually ideal. Another huge factor for us, is that my wife didn’t really have much of a relationship with her grandparents, and she really wants our child to have one with it’s grandparents.  Both our sets of parents live here, so it makes it easy in theory.  Also, I had a very good and close relationship with my grandparents growing up. I know that my grandparents being there for us isn’t something everyone gets, and it was invaluable.  So, we sat them down and asked if they would consider it.  They said they’d think about it, and we headed home.

On Sunday, we met up with some good friends of ours that just had a baby this past spring. We used to live a lot closer to them, but we moved about 25 minutes away when we bought our house, and now it seems like we never see anyone. So it was great to see them, and their son.  We had coffee and pastries (well, everyone but my wife. No coffee for her!), and then headed back to their place.  They had a bunch of stuff their son had outgrown already, and were extremely nice and gave it to us. It’s wonderful, because it definitely saved us from having to purchase more stuff. It’s kind of funny how eager people are to offer us infant clothes though.  My boss had given us a bag also. It should help, because we don’t know what we’re having yet, and we now have a bag of boys/non-specific clothing, and a bag of girls too.  After that, my wife was pretty wiped out from the weekend. We went home, and she napped.  Her parents called last night, and gave us their answer.  They will watch baby for the first year! Huge weight off our chests.

So, all in all a very good, productive weekend.  Hope yours was too!