I have somehow gone from being the person (before child) who researched, planned for, and executed things in a proactive manner, to the person with child who runs around screaming, “Oh shit!  Don’t touch that!  How the hell did you even GET there?!  Crap.  I have to baby proof that now.”  I’m functioning on a completely reactionary basis these days, and it’s not doing any of us any favors, especially not my too curious and slick for his own good child.

I recall the stress of registering while I was pregnant. The overwhelming task of picking out things that you may or may not need, may or may not be vital to your future child’s health and well being, may or may not be giant pieces of crap.  You really just don’t know and can’t tell.  Totally, completely stressful.  I decided to not even bother looking at childproofing stuff.  I mean, really, it was going to be, like, forever until we needed any of that anyway.  We had all the time in the world!  Stupid, stupid me.  Heed this advice.  Start childproofing the minute you see that positive pee stick.  Do it before the morning sickness sets in, before the exhaustion, before your belly is so big that you don’t even know what color polish is on your toes.  If you can’t do it that early, at least do it before the baby comes.

There is something about having a baby, a life that you are responsible for.  It is like stepping into a science fiction time warp or maybe a parenting black hole.  The first few weeks are nothing but a blur, and while they do seem to go incredibly slow at times (especially when it feels like your nipples are going to fall off and the baby won’t stop crying and learn how wonderful sleeping at night can really be), before you know it, time is whizzing by faster than you can wrap your head around.   Next thing you know, you’ve got a baby hauling chubby ass across your kitchen floor.  While you’re still trying to figure out how to introduce finger foods to him, he’s on to trying to figure out how to pull the refrigerator open and make himself a four course meal.

Yes, this lack of preparedness has left me feeling like quite the inadequate and dumbass mother more than once the last few weeks.  One afternoon Kendall was fighting his nap as usual, so I left him in his crib and exited the room.  He fussed and made the usual noises of frustration.  I ignored.  Then I heard what I know to be his “Help me!” cry.  I sprinted to his room and found him in the corner of his crib with the cord from the baby monitor slung across his neck.  OMG.  Let me just tell you, it makes me shudder just to type that.  Somehow he morphed into Gumby and managed to reach behind and below his crib to pull the monitor cord up and over his crib bumper and got tangled up in it.  Of course, only then did it strike me and Scott that is was supremely idiotic to have that plugged in there.

This afternoon presented me with another humdinger of a wakeup call.  I put Kendall in the living room in front of some toys and ran to the front room to look for my phone.  I was gone maybe two minutes when I heard the horrible noise of glass shattering.  I knew, without even seeing, exactly what happened.  He had made his way into the kitchen and pulled a glass pitcher from one of the lower cabinets.  I screamed while simultaneously sprinting, “KENDALL!!  DON’T MOVE!!”  I was there in no more than a second, and he sat there, motionless, as a big frown spread across his face, followed by sad tears.  He was unscathed, despite the sea of shattered glass that surrounded him.

See, I feel most guilty for this incident because I knew it was coming.  It was only a matter of time.  I’ve seen his curiosity in the kitchen.  I’ve tried to divert his attention to the designated cabinet full of CoolWhip containers and wooden spoons, but he looks at me as if to say, “But, mom.  There are no blenders, knives, flamethrowers or any other things that could maim or kill me in that cabinet.  Booooring.”  We’ve been meaning to put the cabinet latches on for a month now.  The package is sitting patiently on top of the kitchen counter, but…well…. time just gets away from you.  Scott is now on a two week business trip, and I intended to have him install them when he gets back; however, there is no way in hell I’m waiting two weeks now.  For all I know, he could be scaling the drawers and sticking his hand down the garbage disposal in two weeks.  So instead of catching up on Lost tonight, I’m going to figure out how to install those damn latches myself.  Then I’m going to run out and buy a giant roll of packing bubbles and affix them to Kendall.

Kendall is 9 months, 1 week and 2 days old

I started the day out excited about our little trip out to Babies R Us.  I did my research, started my wishlist online, wrote down products that I’ve heard other moms recommend and the products they said to stay away from.  It was going to be fun, damnit.  We would go together and gleefully scan the things that our future son would need to have a happy comfy life outside of the womb.  We would walk hand in hand and talk about how neat it will be to finally have a baby to put in that Baby Bjorn.  And then we would come home with a sense of accomplishment….  Wrong.

Instead, we get there and have to listen to this long tutorial on what to register for and how to register for it.  I kept saying we knew about all of this, that it was only a couple years ago that we did this for our wedding and we’ve already done our research on the baby stuff and no I don’t need you to recommend a good stroller – we would like to be on our way.  When they finally handed over our precious gun I was ready to get things started.  My plan of attack was big things first, then little things.  We aren’t even registering for that much big stuff.  We are buying our own stroller, infant seat, high chair and nursery furniture, just to name a few.  Most of which are not sold there or are only sold on their website.  Well, of course that didn’t make the BRU people very happy and they insisted we go talk to the stroller person to see if there was anything in the store that may work for us.  They were also very insistent that we follow the ginormous checklist of baby crapola they gave us to complete our registry.  Stop. pushing. your. crap. on. me.

After breaking lose from all of that we managed to get a few big items scanned in – pack & play, bouncer, swing, etc.  Of course, my husband starts complaining that everything on our registry is going to be so expensive and people are going to judge us and nobody is going to get us anything.  I don’t know how many times I had to point out that we were starting with the big stuff first.  If he could just be a little patient, I’m sure we would add plenty of cheaper stuff from the crapola list later.

I thought I had a pretty good handle on things after we got done with the big stuff.  It wasn’t that hard.  I knew what was good and what wasn’t.  Off to bottles, bibs and Boppies!  Yeah….that’s when it got a little more overwhelming.  Do you know just how many TYPES of bottles there are?  Billions – must be.  So I say lets just register for a few of a few different brands.  Okay, but what about nipples and bottle cleaners and bottle spinners?  Do they all have to match the brand they are made for?  Deep breath…move on…will ask friends and family more about bottles later.  Stop in safety aisle.  Responsible parents should get monitors.  So many to choose from.  There are video monitors!  Shit.  Those are expensive.  Are they necessary?  Are we bad parents if we just get an old fashioned monitor?  Will people judge us for registering for a monitor that is so expensive?  Find one that says Sony on the box.  Sony is good.  We like Sony. It’s not a bad price. We scan the Sony and hope it doesn’t lead to the death of our child.

My husband has visibly lost interest at this point.  I’m getting annoyed that he’s not into it.  How can he not be into this?  This is stuff for the baby!  The baby that he has begged me for for five years.  His first born son.  Deeper breath…scan thermometer.  Realize it’s just for ear temps and wonder if we need a rectal one too.  Scan rectal thermometer.  Have a brief flash forward of me sticking it up my poor baby’s butt.  Move on.  Ahh…the Tiny Diner placemat.  That was on my wishlist!  Scan.  What?  What was that?  You want me to take that off?  You suddenly have interest in what I’m scanning? You think you have an opinion all of the sudden?  Oh, you’re getting bored?!  We’ve been here 45 minutes, 15 minutes of which was taken up by the chatty sales lady!

So that’s pretty much how it ended.  Well, only to be followed by a lengthy argument on the way home about how he thinks the $10 placemat is ridiculous and will be pissed if people buy that for us instead of something we really need like bottles, and how we should take all that expensive stuff off because his family is going to think we’re pretentious and that we should just have cheaper items on there and then trade them all in for the expensive stuff.  What the fuck kind of logic is that?!  We didn’t register for a diamond encrusted pacifier!  We registered for shit by Fisher Price and Graco.  I really don’t give a shit if people think it’s too expensive.  Don’t buy it.  I don’t have the mindset that people have to buy us stuff.  It’s just on there in case they want to.  If we have to, we will buy it all for ourselves – that’s fine.  I’m not about to register for something that I think is a piece of crap just because it’s half the price.

Oh, and I LOVE how all of the sudden he can decide what we do and don’t need.  I ask what kind of research he’s done.  Who has he talked to?  His brothers perhaps?  Done any online research or reviews and ratings?  No.  But I’m the one making the crazy decisions and adding such a frivolous item like a $10 suction cup rubber placemat.

We’re home.  He’s watching some stupid ass Sci Fi movie about the Tin Man or some crap from the Wizard of Oz in the bedroom and I just finished up about 8 crab rangoons and am about to make myself 8 more and call it dinner.  I may try to clean up the mess that is our registry online, or maybe I will just go back out there by myself tomorrow…or maybe I just won’t deal with it at all and our baby can sleep on a dog bed and wear pillowcases for the first few months.

19 weeks 1 day