Excitement building

Last night Kurt wanted to go look at bikes at REI.  He’s been biking to work the last few weeks so as to get more exercise.  It isn’t really a question of the gas, since he only drives a mile and a half every day, and he drives the little car which gets something like 30mpg.  But he felt it was an easy way for him to exercise, and he’s got a friend who bikes in every day too.

The thing is, Kurt’s riding a really cheap $88 dollar bike we got from Wal-Mart when we were first dating.  That makes it at least eight years old.  It’s not the highest quality of bicycles.  Granted, he doesn’t need much, as he keeps to the pavement the entire way, and it’s only a mile and a half.  But he would like something nicer and easier to maneuver.

He found this really awesome bike at REI, a bike with disc brakes and a suspended seat that bobs gently with every bump in the road.  However, at $400 it was a little more than he wanted to spend.

Me, I found the perfect bike for myself.  It’s an Electra Townie 3-speed, and it comes in PINK!!!  (Click HERE to see the specs; click on Pink under Color so you can see it in all its rosy glory.)  Of course, I do not need it, but I would love to have it.  I rode it last night at REI, and it would take a bit of getting used to.  The handlebars are much higher than what I am accustomed to, since I have ridden a boys’ mountain bike my entire life.  But it really is a comfortable ride.

That’s one of the first things I am buying if ever I win the lottery.

As a thank-you for allowing him to putter around REI, though I did manage to find a few cool things for myself (like a coozy of sorts for my water bottle and a lens cloth made by Nikon for my camera), Kurt suggested we check out Babies R Us to see if we needed anything for the baby.

I looooooove Babies R Us, now that I am pregnant again.  It was a huge treat when I lived in Washington, as the closest one involved a trip across the Puget Sound on the ferry, which was a rather expensive proposition.  Once Grace hit about two years old, though, the store lost most of its appeal for me.  She didn’t really need anything there since she was a big girl.

I mainly like to see what all is there, more of a window-shopping trip than a trip to actually buy something.  Some things that are offered crack me up because they feed so much into the fears of a new mother.  Nowadays we are taught to put babies to sleep on their backs to minimize the chances of them dying of SIDS, but that can cause your kid to end up with a flat head if it’s not properly cushioned.  They sell wedges to place your baby between so that she stays on her back, but one set of wedges actually came with “mom-friendly” calipers to measure the baby’s head to check for flat-head syndrome!  I was floored.

I fell in love with a few of the gliders that were there for sale, but alas, I cannot justify laying $300 down on a glider that I don’t really need.  We have an armchair in the office that could easily be my nursing chair, if I manage to be successful in nursing the new baby.

The only frustrating thing about having a second baby is there is so much out there I want, but that I cannot justify getting since I have everything left over from Grace!!  For example, I’d love to get a new swing.  I bought a travel swing for Grace, since we were living in such a small house in Washington that I had no room for a full-size swing.  But it has this bar across the top that makes it very difficult to take the baby out without whacking her head each and every time.  Hmmm, maybe that explains a lot about Grace… ha ha.  I was thinking about getting a new swing, just for that reason, but looking at them at Babies R Us yesterday I realized there was really nothing I liked as well as I like Grace’s swing.  Her travel swing has little fishes that dangle from the cross-bar, and when the baby grabs them, they start to play the music all over again.  I remember Gracie getting all excited when she figured out that if she pulled on the fish, she could start the music and the lights all by herself.  None of the other swings I saw at Babies R Us last night had that feature.  So I guess I’ll stick with the old one, and just try not to whack the baby’s head when I take him/her out.

I did manage to find a new outfit to bring the baby home in.  It’s a fleece hoodie with matching pants, and it’s really adorable.  I’ve already bought a bunch of white and gender-neutral onesies, so I’ll just throw that on underneath.

I think the only thing I need now are a few newborn disposable diapers for the first few days, and then the rest is just getting out what I already have and organizing it.  I still need to wash up the new cloth diapers I bought and find Grace’s newborn gender-neutral clothes amongst all the pink and purple I bought after she was born and we realized she was a girl.  Kurt assures me that he knows where the travel crib is; I just hope I know where the bassinet section is so the baby has a place to sleep in our room.

Things are coming together!!  And I’m getting really excited.  Woooo!