The Aftermath

Saturday was the shower and P was out of town, so yesterday, we went through the gifts together. Surprisingly, we only got a couple duplicates, so the returns won't be nightmarish. Everyone was very generous and a few people were creative and crafty. A few highlights:

A starter kit for cloth diapering - One whole table at the shower seemed dismissive of the cloth diapering idea. P keeps surveying dads he knows and most say, "my wife tried that for like 2 weeks and then got tired of all the laundry." I'm trying to keep an open mind and like an epidural or breastfeeding, not be disappointed if it doesn't play out according to how I think it will. However, all these people being negative about it makes me more determined to give it a shot and at least TRY to make it work. Call me perverse.

A Handprint kit for baby - One of the family friends has proven to be consistently creative and thoughtful with her gifts. I really liked her bridal shower gift too. This kit has four little canvases and paints to do a grouping of hand or footprints either at the beginning or to show a progression as Potus grows.

A video baby monitor - One of the aunts was sooooo excited to get this for us that word was passed down to take the sound monitor we'd registered for off the registry almost as soon as the invites went out. Apparently, I imagined the conversation with P where we discussed pros and cons and settled on the voice monitor as perfectly adequate. He was STOKED about the monitor set and it was one of the first things he put up. There was some discussion about using it to monitor the pets to see who poops in the spare room. But, for now, we're monitoring the crib to see if we've managed to dissuade the cat from using the crib as her own personal palace. He's determined there is internet monitoring available, and I know he was going to see if there was an app to go with....

 The BOB stroller - Grandma asked what we still needed and we told her a stroller, so she and Grandpa bought the stroller, carseat adapter, and console, along with some busy toys to attach. P had that put together faster than all the other things he assembled and then proceeded to try to terrify the dogs with it. Really, it's quite a piece of engineering. It moves super smoothly and turns well. It does actually have a few plastic pieces, but all the crucial tightening and adjustment bits are metal, so we're looking forward to a stroller that might last until we're done with babies. When folded, it does still take up a bit of room though, so that'll be fun in the back of my Prius. I can't really imagine a stroller that takes up less room though, short of an umbrella type design.

A tie-dye outfit - One of the other aunts went looking for gender neutral baby clothes at the local baby boutique, where apparently they don't believe in gender neutral. The best she could find was an adorable little outfit of beautiful tie-dye. I kind of want to put it on Potus right away because I think it'll just look hilarious. He/she will be rainbow from head to toe since it came with pants, a shirt, a hat, and then, if we want to carry the look out when the outfit is in the wash, we can always use the matching blanket to swaddle our little one. You won't be able to miss the kid.

So, after the wrapping paper cleared I started to take inventory of what we still lacked. There are all sorts of little things, like a few bottles, some creams and toiletries, and things for baby proofing, but the major pieces we were still missing were the infant car seat and a breast pump. We ordered the car seat yesterday, but I'm still looking for a breast pump if anyone knows someone I can borrow from.