27 wks S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G. for B.A.B.Y.
Sale at Prenatal! This is d-day! My sister and I head over to Heerlen and raid Ikea first, loading all kinds of baby stuff onto the cart. Is this something I normally overlook, or is it just today that a statistically weird number of pregnant women are shopping at Ikea? And is it just me, or are we all suspicious, sizing each other up?
Never having been one to happily participate in any kind of group dynamic anyway (except when I get to be the outsider who watches or leads), I am completely puzzled by the unwritten social rules of pregnant women or any parties orbiting around them. And this gets clearer to me every day. Also, I am aware that it’s me, not them, that’s making life on their planet annoying. I should return the endearing smiles, redirect childbearing questions with tell-me-your-story-questions, tear up whenever I hear my babies’ heartbeat, and keep a graph of his kicking movements throughout the day. If I only did that, we would get along perfectly fine.
Prenatal is one of Holland’s biggest stores for everything Baby. Today, they offer a 20% discount on all items, which means this is the day to stock up! Apparently, Prenatal is reluctant to get people to the store on this day, because they didn’t post the date on their website, nor their flyers, so my sister and me had to pull a bit of a 007 to find out when to be there. But upon entering the store, we had to conclude we had simply used the wrong media canals, because almost every pregnant woman in the region was present picking out strollers and Maxi Cosi’s.
But ladies and gentlemen – I am proud to say – WE GOT HIM! The stroller of my liking. Orange and sand colored. With a sand colored foot bag, because ‘when you pick orange, this might not match with every outfit he’s going to have on’. Right on. We got the stroller, and the footbag, and the maxi cosi (the cheapest one they had, which I had to pay for with a very disapproving look of the sales lady and a few moms-to-be in my near vicinity when I stammered something about how this one’s black color would fit neatly with the car’s interior…the car I’m about to sell by the way), and the few maternity wear items that didn’t look either huge or ridiculous on me.
Week 27 and I’m still short of the baby closet, but everything else is IN MY HOUSE!
And then all the stuff is sitting in my house, waiting to be put together. Most things will have to wait, because the nursery has to be painted first, and that won’t happen till week 30. But a pregnant woman, they tell me, gets anxious when things aren’t moving along and this is true for me as well (though I think I already possessed this trait before I chose to put my body through Hormone Hell). So a plan was made for me and Ralf to combine purpose and pleasure in one great stroller-assembly-date. I did my utmost to put Ralf in a very easygoing mood by preparing a dinner that wasn’t burnt, overcooked, ex- nor imploded in the oven, or any other of my usual cooking features. And I miraculously succeeded in getting a dozen of chicken legs out of the oven sizzling with taste and aroma! Lucky strike, probably, but great dinner nonetheless.
With dessert, we watched the DVD that came with the manual that came with the stroller. For those who quickly glanced over the previous sentence; let me help you get the essential info out of this great piece of work. A DVD came with the stroller. And when something like this is added to an already huge manual, I get the feeling the DVD contains valid information. There is no other excuse I can give to explain why I subjected a good friend to five minutes of watching a badly-dressed woman in an otherwise empty room assemble and dismantle a baby stroller over and over again. Why would anyone want to see something like that? Let alone do something like that? 5 minutes felt like an eternity. Ralf and I stared at the screen long after the dvd was finished. The upside: labor itself seems to be a better prospect than ever putting that disc into any playing device ever again.
First sentence in the manual: do not assemble or disassemble this stroller whenever a baby is sitting in it.
Another great tip: if you add weight onto the stroller in any place other than the crib itself, the stroller will risk becoming unstable.
And this was only the first page. Ralf and I struggled through page after page of instructions, some of which suggested a very low regard for all Bugaboo-buying customers. We were not discouraged, though, determined to make happen what the dvd-lady had managed numerous times. The end result was a beautiful stroller with amazing flexibility that I get. And a deepening of a friendship that now holds a few extra secrets on stroller-assembly.
