I have been worried about this day for a while for several reasons:
- I wanted to get it marked off my to-do list.
- Based on our only previous registering experience (wedding), I was worried that one of us
(Dan)would not come out alive. We basically both have an opinion on everything, so I was worried it would be very tryingand had already lined up girlfriends to help me dispose of the evidence in case an emergency homicide took place. :-) - Just walking into baby stores is overwhelming, so I knew registering would stress me out.
All in all, the registering process went a lot better than expected. I felt like my research paid off, even though I can admit that I am borderline ridiculously OCD. The first thing we did was decide on where to register. In the end, we went with Buy Buy Baby and Amazon Baby Registry for several reasons (If you want to skip the rest of this paragraph, here are the
***UPDATE: Steph just told me after reading the blog that I made up the $75 amount for BRU (pregnancy brain?) - it is actually $250 per household. She also said that the problem arose with people who didn't buy from their registry, not those who did buy from the registry. Just thought I'd share in the interest of full disclosure!***
We arrived to register, and due to the yucky weather yesterday, we hit the only snafu of the day: everyone else had the same idea. There were literally 6 other couples who showed up around the same time as us wanting to register. It didn't end up being a big deal - just took a little longer than it would have had we gone on like a Tuesday afternoon. Part 2 of this snafu was that since the store is brand new, so are the employees - so the woman who was assigned to help us was slightly clueless on the registry process and as a result created a registry for us 3 different times. So, those of you who are curious and did a search for ours and saw 3 come up: ours is the last one listed, #12522220, and they're working on deleting the others. We also registered at Amazon because they have a huge selection of everything you could possibly ever want. Additionally, the pack 'n play was the only thing Dan wanted a say in, and the one he insisted on of course cannot be found in any store. Both have great benefits, return policies (Amazon's is 365 days!), completion discounts, etc. so I'm really happy with both choices.
I have mentioned to all of you before that I am seriously crazy/OCD. The proof lies in the following photo, my registry preparation materials:
Not kidding. I started with the BBB book that they give every couple who registers - I requested mine on one of our earlier visits when we were looking at strollers so I could begin my research (ugh, nerd). I also printed out all of the e-mails and blog comments I've gotten from girlfriends with must-haves (special thanks to Emily, Lindsey, Andrea, Diana and Carly - you were all so helpful!). Since there wasn't a ton of room in the registry book to make notes, I transferred the checklist into an excel document and added a column for which specific brands we'd decided to get, based on our research as well as recommendations - and then I included a column for checking things off. To be safe, I also turned this into a Google document and e-mailed it to both Dan and myself so that we could take the iPad in case that was easier. To be fair, this part of the crazy was suggested by Dan, but considering that I was mad that I hadn't thought of it first, I guess we're even. We did not end up using the iPad - my
This is getting long, so I'll try to wrap up quickly. Registering went very smoothly - there were no arguments, so I was surprised. He won on several items, I won on several others - compromising at its finest, folks. Towards the end, I realized that the snack supply I normally keep in my purse had been depleted the day before in an emergency situation, so I got crabby, but that was the worst of it. I let Dan be in charge of the scanner gun, so I knew there was no telling what would show up on the registry - and we had some cleaning up to do anyway (i.e. things we scanned and changed our minds about but couldn't figure out how to delete, things we realized we forgot but I was hungry and NOT going back through the store, etc.), but we took care of most of that today. The whole process, from the time we started scanning, really only took around 2.5 hours - so that was a bonus of having gone in several times before to test some things out, I suppose. I'm sure that I will do some editing between now and my showers - I have plenty of time - but all in all I feel a lot better having just gotten that marked off the list.
One more thing we were able to mark off? Purchasing the glider! I'm so excited about this one. It is so comfortable and so pretty (as well as neutral so that it can be used in future nurseries), and I can't wait to rock baby girl to sleep in it:
The color pictured is the one we went with (I guess there are several pictured, but it's the cream-colored one with the swatch book laying on the ottoman) - you can't tell, but it's textured - they almost look like little squares. I took my nursery fabric samples and laid them out on the ottoman to make sure they matched, and they look perfect. Anyway, it's really pretty. It was in stock but we decided to wait and have it delivered with our furniture (whenever it comes in) since neither of us have a huge car. Using the handy 20% off coupon that my future brother-in-law got for us by signing up for e-mails (thanks Joshie!), we got a great deal.
I guess I've bored you enough with this post. Today, Dan has a retreat all afternoon for one of the boards he's a member of, so I'm going to do some grocery shopping, clean up the house, and have a delicious pot of chili waiting on him for dinner when he gets home. Yum! Then we're carving pumpkins, and I'm really excited about it. Better late than never, right?
Hope everyone else had a fantastic weekend!
S
Oh Sarah...I'm not sure OCD fully describes you... :)
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