A-shopping we did go

This past weekend, I had my first ever baby shopping adventure. I say shopping, but a more accurate description would be baby looking...I registered at my first retail outlet and got to pick from ka-jillions of products that I didn't even know existed.

I have never beheld so many gadgets, thingies, what's-its and gizmos in my life. And this was all at just one location! Talk about an overwhelming influx of information, it was baby gadget sensory overload. Who knew that so many props were required for the rearing of one little bitty human being? How in the hell did we learn anything much less survive baby-hood before all these necessities came to be?

When I was a kid, 'accessories' included a stack of cloth diapers with pins (I still have my pins), rubber pants, and hand-me-downs from your older brothers and sisters. 'Toys' included mom's pots and pans, a paste-board box aka. playhouse with a hole cut in it for a 'door', and a set of wooden blocks painted bright colors hand-made by my grandfather. My, my, how times have changed.

Now, one must have binky's, onesies, monitors, sleeping wedges, bumpers, wipies, wipie warmers, mobiles, electric boob pumps, walkers, strollers, bouncers, exer-saucers, play mats, bath stations, travel systems, play yards, and this:

It's a Baby Einstein play station, and it's, ummm, awfully cute. Excuse me, but is it really necessary for a newborn to learn the theory of relativity? If any of my siblings or myself had been given this as a child, we would have shredded it within one day. I suppose we were a bit more rugged back then. Don't get too judgemental on me now. And, no. I did NOT add this to my registry.

However, I did find some very attractive and very practical things that I might actually use for more than five whole minutes after the baby is born.Things like this:

And I especially loved this because it looks sturdy enough for me to waddle behind with the bambino in tow, and get my own behind back into shape:

Aunt Na and I are both under the assumed delusion that I will give birth to a little boy. No, we do not have a clue why, and no, we have done no voodoo-witchcraft-old-wives-tales experiments....yet. Although I may have to break out the pencil, needle and thread and do 'the test'. Have any of you ever heard of 'the test'? It's been pretty accurate on the folks I've seen use it.

If you want to see more, look me up by name at www.target.com