I had big hopes for today... I wanted to run a bunch of errands, go shopping, take care of baby furniture, etc... Well, that was before my crappy night sleep. I slept about 6 hours in total and have been pretty exhausted all day. I tried falling back asleep but nothing would work. On top of that, we pretty much ran out of groceries so I just munched on cheerios all morning. After my husband went to the gym we got ready to start our day. Despite being exhausted, I wanted to get something accomplished today, especially because it was a beautiful day outside. We set off on our errands and decided to go out for lunch first.
Man, what a windy (but nice day). As we walked across town (probably a little too quickly because we were both hungry), that familiar feeling came back... nausea... Uh oh, I'm gonna puke. We "pull over" on 57th street and I start booting... It was pretty gross with the wind... it was flying everywhere! How embarassing! My hubby ran into the Morton Williams supermarket and stole a shopping bag so that I could salvage a bit of dignity and not just puke directly on the street. People were looking at me like I was nuts and my husband was explaining... she's pregnant, she's pregnant... everything's ok... After I got the offending stomach acid out of my system we carried on to our lunch destination where I had a tuna melt and started to feel better. Our next stop was Elizabeth Arden to meet up with my dad who was going to join us on a bunch of our errands. We then moved on to Destination Maternity where I returned some too long leggings and tried to pick up some additional clothes with no luck - nothing fit... My dad and hubby were troopers... We were in the store for a while and they were patient. Luckily Destination Maternity has a section for men that includes a TV, computers, etc... It's pretty convenient for the ladies.
My ambitious plans were pretty much destroyed... After Destination Maternity we went home... I didn't get to buy baby furniture, new shoes for my now wider feet, or anything... Instead, I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up my registry, making changes to it, reading online reviews of things that looked good in the store but I knew nothing about... I also started a new registry on diapers.com... I like that they offer free shipping and I will get a 10% completion discount once the baby is born... that should come in handy when I realize all the additional things I need once the baby is actually born... Having them delivered (for free) to our apartment (with a 10% discount) will be much easier than running out with a newborn! The diapers.com registry has a lot of duplicate items from my Buy Buy Baby registry and also some additional things that Buy Buy Baby didn't have... I just figured it was good to have more than one store option to add things...
Now I'm just completely exhausted and counting the minutes until it's respectable to go to bed... 8 or 9pm should do...
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Registering for Baby
Since learning that we're having a boy I've been very focused on making plans for our little one to arrive! Yesterday the hubby and I visited Buy Buy Baby to create our registry. Getting my husband into a store is not an easy thing (unless we're shopping for clothes for him). His usual mentality is get in and get out as quickly as possible where I like to make sure I've surveyed every option available prior to making a decision.
We arrive at BBB and go directly to the registry sign up where we fill out some paperwork, are given a scanner and we begin by tackling the most important and big ticket items first (my thinking is that if that's all we get done today, then I'm happy). We head down a flight of stairs and my head begins to spin!!! Holy cow there is so much baby stuff! Since I know that the only thing you are legally bound to have is a car seat we head to those first.
We start perusing... Graco, Peg Perego, Maxi Cosi, Chicco... They all look the same besides subtle fabric differences. I begin feeling the padding and feel completely overwhelmed. I see a nice Chicco one, remember A has it and think... Perfect, done. Hubby is controlling the gun so I tell him to zap. He's looking at the Peg Perego and thinks it looks sturdier... I tell him to zap both and I will check Consumer Reports to see which is the safest. (before heading to BBB I went to Borders to check out Consumer Reports and the store only had a book from 2009! I decided not to waste my time! I was looking at 2011 merchandise after all).
Next we head to the stroller section and we're completely lost. Luckily there was a nice lady doing stroller demos in the store so we watched her for quite a while and then realized we were silly for picking a car seat first... You pick the stroller first (our baby's primary mode of transport) and then pick a compatible car seat that can snap in for cab travel... So we deleted our first scanned selections from the registry wand and watched intently as a nice girl named Katie provided details on all the different stroller functionalities. We narrowed it down to two strollers pretty quickly - the Uppa Baby Vista and the Bugaboo Cameleon. We test drove both... pretty similar, though the Bugaboos ride was definitely smoother and it had a smaller footprint. The Vista, though, had a few more bells and whistles, could handle babies for a longer period of time (greater weight limit) and was a bit cheaper. The deciding factor for us was the stroller breakdown. Given that we live in a tiny NYC apartment I was hoping to avoid buying two strollers to start (one main stroller for long walks and then a travel stroller for ease getting in and out of cabs / subway, etc...) I figured when the kid reached six months we would buy a tiny, collapsible umbrella stroller, but for now I wanted one stroller that could handle a bassinet, toddler seat AND take a car seat. Hubby and I hung around the stroller department for quite a while, snapping in all the different pieces and practicing breakdown of both the Vista and the Cameleon. We found the Cameleon much easier to break down then the Vista, so that pretty much sealed the deal for us despite the hefty price tag (but we figured, we don't have a car, so if this is the primary mode of baby transport, we may as well spring for it). We picked out our color scheme (grey / black), then headed back to the car seats to see which were compatible with the Bugaboo. Our options were Maxi Cosi, Peg Perego and Graco. We decided to go with the lightest (and apparently most popular), the Graco Snugride. We zapped it, registered for its coordinating stroller adaptor and we had finally made some headway.
Honestly, at this point we were both pretty beat, but we had to keep going. Next we registered for a baby bjorn. We went with a mesh one since I remember carrying my nephew around last summer and sweating my ass off! Apparently the mesh is more breathable and lightweight. The we moved on to crib bedding. I had pretty much already fallen in love (via the internet) with the Dwell studio Gio Aqua Crib Set and we wanted to go with that. They didn't have any of the sets available (I think it's sold out everywhere right now) so I just made a mental note to add to the registry when I returned home. I'm very confused by the bedding sets. EVERY SINGLE ONE comes with a bumper, fitted sheet, crib skirt and blanket. I've read mixed things regarding the bumper... Some sites (not many) say they are dangerous and can lead to suffocation and others say that as long as they're tied to the crib properly, it should be fine. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it and decide to talk to a pediatrician before making any decisions. I mean, I want a cute nursery, but not at the expense of my kiddies safety.
Then we moved on to bouncers / soothers and we just zapped the Mamaroo... I heard it was a good one from another friend and decided to just go with it... I could always change the registry later. It has a huge white base, which I'm not a fan of, but if it soothes the baby, aesthetics don't matter! There are more cost effective bouncers out there that are a bit smaller, I may add one of those to the registry later on once I've done more research. My patience for shopping was starting to wear thin so we just picked a Chicco high chair and moved on.
Before heading upstairs to finish up our registering, we took a seat in the Dutailer gliders. Man these things are ugly as sin, but they are so darn comfortable! We're probably going to have to get one but we decide to tackle that on our next trip (and perhaps I can find some cuter ones!)
Upstairs we hit the bottle section first... I register for a Born Free set of bottles since they're recommended by A, her sister and seem to eliminate gas / colic. I also select my Medela breast pump and assorted boob accessories... We pick some bibs and a bottle drying rack (do we even need this? can't we just use our dishwasher?? - must research this). Then we start looking at baby baths... we pick one with a sling/hammock and some adorable hooded towels. I think my hubby's favorite selection was a duck baby bathrobe (it's pretty darn cute). We picked a couple of little toys, he selected his dude diaper bag and then we moved on to activity mats... I had a tough time with these... They are all so damn cute! Do I want farm animals? Garden theme? I can't decide, so I register for two...
We are both completely exhausted at this point! 3.5 hours of registering has taken its toll. We returned our zapper and got a nice goody bag from the store (with bottles, pacifiers, etc...). I must say, hubby was extremely into this shopping trip... Much more so then when we registered for the wedding. I appreciated his dedication to finding the best options for our little boy.
Today we plan to tackle nursery furniture and I will begin to look for my diaper bag... This stuff is all tons of fun, but it will be nice once everything is registered for! I'm just so happy I'm well enough that I can actually begin to enjoy part of this pregnancy. I'm by no means at 100%, but I'm feeling much better every day. My only gripe is that I've been having a much harder time sleeping than I ever did. I wake up starving in the middle of the night and am up for a few hours. Is baby preparing me for his arrival? If so, I don't appreciate it! Now is my chance to sleep! The only consolation is that hubby is a bad sleeper and he's usually up at the same time... so we just kinda hang until we fall back asleep.
That's all for now!
We arrive at BBB and go directly to the registry sign up where we fill out some paperwork, are given a scanner and we begin by tackling the most important and big ticket items first (my thinking is that if that's all we get done today, then I'm happy). We head down a flight of stairs and my head begins to spin!!! Holy cow there is so much baby stuff! Since I know that the only thing you are legally bound to have is a car seat we head to those first.
We start perusing... Graco, Peg Perego, Maxi Cosi, Chicco... They all look the same besides subtle fabric differences. I begin feeling the padding and feel completely overwhelmed. I see a nice Chicco one, remember A has it and think... Perfect, done. Hubby is controlling the gun so I tell him to zap. He's looking at the Peg Perego and thinks it looks sturdier... I tell him to zap both and I will check Consumer Reports to see which is the safest. (before heading to BBB I went to Borders to check out Consumer Reports and the store only had a book from 2009! I decided not to waste my time! I was looking at 2011 merchandise after all).
Next we head to the stroller section and we're completely lost. Luckily there was a nice lady doing stroller demos in the store so we watched her for quite a while and then realized we were silly for picking a car seat first... You pick the stroller first (our baby's primary mode of transport) and then pick a compatible car seat that can snap in for cab travel... So we deleted our first scanned selections from the registry wand and watched intently as a nice girl named Katie provided details on all the different stroller functionalities. We narrowed it down to two strollers pretty quickly - the Uppa Baby Vista and the Bugaboo Cameleon. We test drove both... pretty similar, though the Bugaboos ride was definitely smoother and it had a smaller footprint. The Vista, though, had a few more bells and whistles, could handle babies for a longer period of time (greater weight limit) and was a bit cheaper. The deciding factor for us was the stroller breakdown. Given that we live in a tiny NYC apartment I was hoping to avoid buying two strollers to start (one main stroller for long walks and then a travel stroller for ease getting in and out of cabs / subway, etc...) I figured when the kid reached six months we would buy a tiny, collapsible umbrella stroller, but for now I wanted one stroller that could handle a bassinet, toddler seat AND take a car seat. Hubby and I hung around the stroller department for quite a while, snapping in all the different pieces and practicing breakdown of both the Vista and the Cameleon. We found the Cameleon much easier to break down then the Vista, so that pretty much sealed the deal for us despite the hefty price tag (but we figured, we don't have a car, so if this is the primary mode of baby transport, we may as well spring for it). We picked out our color scheme (grey / black), then headed back to the car seats to see which were compatible with the Bugaboo. Our options were Maxi Cosi, Peg Perego and Graco. We decided to go with the lightest (and apparently most popular), the Graco Snugride. We zapped it, registered for its coordinating stroller adaptor and we had finally made some headway.
Honestly, at this point we were both pretty beat, but we had to keep going. Next we registered for a baby bjorn. We went with a mesh one since I remember carrying my nephew around last summer and sweating my ass off! Apparently the mesh is more breathable and lightweight. The we moved on to crib bedding. I had pretty much already fallen in love (via the internet) with the Dwell studio Gio Aqua Crib Set and we wanted to go with that. They didn't have any of the sets available (I think it's sold out everywhere right now) so I just made a mental note to add to the registry when I returned home. I'm very confused by the bedding sets. EVERY SINGLE ONE comes with a bumper, fitted sheet, crib skirt and blanket. I've read mixed things regarding the bumper... Some sites (not many) say they are dangerous and can lead to suffocation and others say that as long as they're tied to the crib properly, it should be fine. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it and decide to talk to a pediatrician before making any decisions. I mean, I want a cute nursery, but not at the expense of my kiddies safety.
Then we moved on to bouncers / soothers and we just zapped the Mamaroo... I heard it was a good one from another friend and decided to just go with it... I could always change the registry later. It has a huge white base, which I'm not a fan of, but if it soothes the baby, aesthetics don't matter! There are more cost effective bouncers out there that are a bit smaller, I may add one of those to the registry later on once I've done more research. My patience for shopping was starting to wear thin so we just picked a Chicco high chair and moved on.
Before heading upstairs to finish up our registering, we took a seat in the Dutailer gliders. Man these things are ugly as sin, but they are so darn comfortable! We're probably going to have to get one but we decide to tackle that on our next trip (and perhaps I can find some cuter ones!)
Upstairs we hit the bottle section first... I register for a Born Free set of bottles since they're recommended by A, her sister and seem to eliminate gas / colic. I also select my Medela breast pump and assorted boob accessories... We pick some bibs and a bottle drying rack (do we even need this? can't we just use our dishwasher?? - must research this). Then we start looking at baby baths... we pick one with a sling/hammock and some adorable hooded towels. I think my hubby's favorite selection was a duck baby bathrobe (it's pretty darn cute). We picked a couple of little toys, he selected his dude diaper bag and then we moved on to activity mats... I had a tough time with these... They are all so damn cute! Do I want farm animals? Garden theme? I can't decide, so I register for two...
We are both completely exhausted at this point! 3.5 hours of registering has taken its toll. We returned our zapper and got a nice goody bag from the store (with bottles, pacifiers, etc...). I must say, hubby was extremely into this shopping trip... Much more so then when we registered for the wedding. I appreciated his dedication to finding the best options for our little boy.
Today we plan to tackle nursery furniture and I will begin to look for my diaper bag... This stuff is all tons of fun, but it will be nice once everything is registered for! I'm just so happy I'm well enough that I can actually begin to enjoy part of this pregnancy. I'm by no means at 100%, but I'm feeling much better every day. My only gripe is that I've been having a much harder time sleeping than I ever did. I wake up starving in the middle of the night and am up for a few hours. Is baby preparing me for his arrival? If so, I don't appreciate it! Now is my chance to sleep! The only consolation is that hubby is a bad sleeper and he's usually up at the same time... so we just kinda hang until we fall back asleep.
That's all for now!
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