dianaschnuth

This week’s baby-related acquisitions: car seat and stroller. Both second-hand, both in fine shape. The car seat we got from our awesome friends Doug and Erika, whose daughter has moved up in the world from infant seat to convertible seat. The stroller we got from Once Upon A Child, which we’ve been frequenting for the past several weeks, so we knew when we saw a slightly-nicer-looking-than-usual Graco stroller for $48 that we may as well jump on it.

We ended up with the Graco Infant SafeSeat and the Graco Quattro Tour Deluxe stroller. Granted, the patterns don’t match, but we don’t particularly care; we basically got a $200+ travel system used for $50. Once Junior grows out of the car seat, we’ll have the option of either keeping the stroller or trading it back to the secondhand store for credit and purchasing a lighter-weight stroller that fits in the trunk a little easier.

The only thing we still need to buy that isn’t on our registry is our crib mattress. We won’t know until after our shower how much we’ll still need to buy for ourselves: mattress cover, changing pad, bouncer, pack-n-play, etc.

In other preparations, I’ve been reading craptons of books, asking questions of my parental friends on Facebook, listening to podcasts, that sort of thing. Between all that, the hospital tour, and the impending Childbirth Express class coming up in a couple of weekends, I’m feeling surprisingly unstressed… sometimes. Sometimes I do get into a tizzy of OMG I CAN’T BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANOTHER HUMAN BEING — I’M NOT DONE WITH MYSELF YET, but it doesn’t usually last for long, thankfully.

I’m well into the phase where strangers greet me with either a double-take at my belly or just straight-up asking me when I’m due. I get a lot of “Boy, you’ve probably had enough of this heat!” Luckily, I’ve gotten better with the small talk the longer I’ve worked in an office environment, so I can smile and answer with something appropriate, depending on who’s asking.

My co-worker is due exactly one week before me, so it’s also fun to get comments from other employees from other departments, usually asking about how our boss is dealing with the situation. It’s even better if he’s there, too, so we can get his reaction. Today, for example:

Marketing Bigwig, to my co-worker: When are you due?
Co-worker: September 19th — and she’s due a week after me!
Me: Yep, I’m due September 26th.
Marketing Bigwig, to our boss: And what are you going to do?
Our Boss: Cry.

Priceless.