Overwhelmed

Yesterday, Ben and I went to start our baby registry at Babies R Us.  It was slightly overwhelming.  I am so fortunate to have many friends with children and so I had a heads up on most of the products I was looking at.  Boppys anyone? 

We were making a lot of progress by picking out furniture, bottles, diapers, etc.  Then we hit the car seat and stroller isles.  Oh. My. Goodness.  This was just absolutely crazy and within 2 minutes, Ben and I both had a system overload.  How do you know which one is the best?  The safest?  How do I know which features I will want?  Are plastic wheels ok?  Do I need rubber wheels?  Do I want a drink holder?  One holder?  Two holders?  A travel system?  A jogging stroller?  A clip and go?  Or all separate pieces?  Holy cow!!!

I remember my best friend Stacy telling me that I want a really light stroller or travel system, so I began looking at the weights.  Most of them were about 20 pounds and then I came across one that was 13 pounds.  Jackpot!  So I pulled out the travel system that was 13 pounds and started playing with it.  It wasn't until my husband pointed out that the stroller was blue and green and covered in monkeys that this was probably a "boy" stroller and we don't know what we are having....yet.

So, then I looked at the travel system next to the 13 pound stroller.  It was a jogging stroller with a travel system.  It also weighs 26 pounds.  Ben and I decided to compare the two.  I pulled it down and took out the car seat to see how easily I could fold the stroller up (this has become my "test" to see if the stroller is appropriate for me) and it was very difficult to fold up.  I decided this was not the stroller for me and went to unfold it to put it back on display and it was stuck.  Really stuck.  So Ben tried to open the stroller.  Still, really stuck.  (this is when the system overload went into meltdown phase)  After 5 minutes of not being able to open the stroller, I had to go to the front of the store and ask the high school girl working there if she could help me and my husband open a stroller (yeah, we are smart, thanks graduate school).  In about 0.23 seconds she opened the stroller and showed us the "lock" that is on the side for when you close the stroller up.  Awesome!  But still to heavy and too hard to open/close.  After that fiasco we moved onto bath time stuff.  I am going to wait a few days, weeks, months before I attempt to register for a travel system/stroller/car seat combo ever again.

Ben and I have a list of all the things we need to register for (the store gave it to us).  As we made our way around babies r us we realized very quickly that most items are gender specific.  So, my big question was- what do people do that are not finding out the gender of the baby? 
I found this great diaper pale/diaper genie thing but the handles were either blue or pink.  Register later.
I found the greatest receiving blankets but they were either blue or pink.  Register later.
High chairs- blue or pink.  Register later.
The pack and play that I want- either blue or pink.  Register later.
Etc, etc.

I had no idea how many items are gender specific.  So, while we did get overwhelmed, we did accomplish a lot (I think), and we still have a lot of items to add (gender specific).  Anyways, this mom-to-be enjoyed the trip because it became slightly more "real" to me that yes, in fact, we are going to have a baby.