Dazed and Confused in Babies "R" Us

The baby is due March 19th, and yesterday I've received confirmation of what I feared all along.

I have no clue what the HELL I'm doing.

Erin and I registered for our upcoming Baby Shower yesterday. Half the stuff we're requesting I have no idea if we need or not.

If it was up to me, I just would've went down the aisles scanning stuff. A blind man might have done a better job than I did.

Thank God Erin was there. Erin had a good plan of going down the baby essential list that the store provided. But I have a feeling that when we end up with half the stuff we requested, a lot of it is going to end up in a big pile in the corner of the Baby's room.

Cause we won't know how to use any of it.

Even a thing like baby clothes was an ordeal. Apparently, according to the list, we needed Onesies. What the hell is a Onesies? I assume it's a one piece suit. But is it his underwear, or is it his clothes. See what I mean? I always joke with Erin that I want to dress the kid in sweats and a t-shirt till he's 12 years old. Roll the sweats up when he's small and just let the baby grow into a big pair of sweats. I don't think that's such a bad idea. Dressing a baby shouldn't be complicated. All they do is shit and piss themselves. What do they gotta look fashionable for anyways?

The first hour in the place we just looked around the store lost. There was a bunch of pads, blankets, hooded towels, humidifiers, breast pumps, waterproof, soil resistant things that looked important. We didn't know where to begin. The funny thing was that when we asked the worker's there how to use any of the stuff, they didn't really know either. We ran into other first time mother's, and they were as lost as we were. Everyone was walking around with a combined look of confusion and fear.

A look like "What the Hell did we get ourselves into?"

As far as our strategy for selecting items went, when we got to the big stuff, I usually just picked the most expensive, or best looking gadget. They had all these fancy swings and junk. It was all confusing, I do remember the Eddie Bauer brand. I picked a lot of Eddie Bauer stuff. For all we know it's crap, but hell I know the brand, I seen it in the mall, it's a camping store right? Anyways it looked sturdy and tough to me.

When we were looking at strollers we had the good fortune to run into an actual mommy. Erin smartly asked ,"What was it that we should be looking for when we pick a stroller?" She answered that we should get something light and easy to use.

Easy to use? I thought all you had to do was push the stroller. I guess nowadays it's hard to push. But apparently I'm wrong.

The mommy pointed out that we should pick one that stores easy, to put in and take out of a car. She pointed out that half the strollers in the market today are heavy, and take forever to unfold. At that exact moment, I was fidgeting with a Eddie Bauer stroller, when I realized that the huge monster stroller that I currently had in my possession was exactly what she was speaking about. To test her theory out, as she was talking to Erin, I tried to fold the stroller for storage, after about 10 minutes, I realized that I actually needed to have at least 4 years of engineering training, and a masters in physics to understand the complexities of the device.

Needless to say we went with the stroller she recommended.

Car Seats were another adventure. They had different sizes, shapes, weight regulations. When we looked for our little mommy friend she was nowhere to be found though. She disappeared into thin air, she was almost like a little stroller Angel sent by God to push us in the correct direction. But this time she was gone, there was no such luck with the Car Seats. No one to help us out.

So we went with the Eddie Bauer brand.

I guessing most of this junk is going to be unnecessary anyways. I have a friend who said that when she was a baby her parents put her to sleep in a dresser shelve.

Wow, why can't we go back to those days? I'd be willing to let the kid sleep in one of my dresser shelves. I could use the extra money to buy a new DVD player or download some songs.

Something tells me that Erin isn't going to let me do that though.

I admit I'm confused, but the truth is I'm also excited. I keep hearing from people that it's going to be difficult, a nightmare, I won't sleep anymore. That my life is never going to be the same. That kind of thing. It's actually getting a little annoying.

We know it's going to be difficult.

It's not like we're going to just give up the baby one day when it gets hard. As if, when the baby won't stop crying, I'm going to throw him out on the curb. That maybe one day I'll snap and I'm going to say:

"That's it, I give up!!! It was fun while it lasted but this parenting thing is too hard!"

I'm thinking we can't return the baby to the hospital....whether we have a receipt or not.

I'm just worried about doing a good job taking good care of the kid, and using the stuff we get right. I don't mind hard work.

I'm sure in time, I'll be an expert with all these devices, and things. I'll be like Inspector Gadget pulling crap out of my ass to make the baby stop crying. But for now I'm a novice, and I have no clue how to make this stuff work.

I just hope it will come with easy to read instructions......

Or else I'm just going to have to call this Eddie Bauer guy up myself.