What do my Child and Buffalo Bill have in Common?

It's a lazy Friday before a holiday weekend and I'm presently enjoying my couch.  I realized last weekend that this whole baby thing is moving much more quickly than I anticipated.  It's really quite unfair.  Basically I spent the first 16-20 weeks feeling sick.  Then I finally started to feel human again and all I wanted to do was go back to my life.  So I did and after a few weeks I started to realize that I have about 8 weeks of feeling human before I start to feel like the Goodyear blimp.  I think I'm in my 23rd week and I'm still pretty small.  Although I'm not lucky, so I suspect this reprieve is short lived.  So I resigned myself to the fact that I needed to get my ass in gear and actually plan for this poor baby girl/boy.

(btw - with all the modern technology available, they still couldn't really tell me for sure if this child is a boy or a girl.  The kid wouldn't give up the goods during the anatomy scan so while it looks "girl-ish" it could be a boy pulling a Silence of the Lambs Buffalo Bill kind of thing.  Fast forward to 3:00 if you're cinematically stunted.  And no, I'm not suggesting our child will be a transvestite with body piercings.  Did anyone else realize this chick is the one on ER now?  I digress...)

Well, I'm nothing if not a planner.  So I've started hitting up my friends at a frenetic pace. Anyone that has birthed a child in the last 2 years has gotten a phone call.  As a female we all talk about things that would probably horrify most men however pregnancy brings out a special brand of gross conversation.  For instance, my college roommate and I had an entire conversation about the merits of the hooter hider and something called Soothies which are apparently little silicon things you put on your nipples.  (In case you're wondering, I have decided we were significantly cooler when we used to get drunk in the shower before parties, stay out all night and then sleep all day.)  

Then a similar conversation with my old co-worker about breast pumps and under stroller baskets .  (Again....much cooler when we got drunk and went swimming half naked in a hotel pool.)

Last weekend and a few late nights this week produced a registry.  (PS - My wedding registry was about 1 million times more fun than this.  Selecting cookware is far cooler than organic onesies.) The resident expert, aka my mother, has decided that everything I've selected is far too expensive.  Apparently many people have experienced a similar phenomena.  

One of my co-workers tells me that his mother also came out of her time warp from the 70's to tell him that he and his wife were spending too much money and tried to sell them on the merits of an old umbrella stroller.  I sincerely believe my mother thinks I should be able to raise this child with an old playpen, a few onesies and a wooden spoon to beat them with when they get out of line.   She talks a good game but I see where this is going.  You see, it won't matter how much things cost when she's the one buying them for her grandchild.  I suspect this is only the start of a double standard that applies to grandparents the world over.

 

Today my big plan is to find a crib that will probably cost too much and visit a daycare that likely doesn't have space for our little Buffalo Bill... wish me luck.