I "R" Shopping

I recently found myself in Babies "R" Us. See how I used sentence construction to absolve myself of responsibility? It makes it sound like I was transported there against my will and woke up surrounded by tall shelves of endless disposable diapers and artificial baby milk. I had nothing to do with it.

It was my fault, though. I have never been in one of these stores, and I figured I would check out the resources within a certain perimeter of our house to see what is available. I am committed to getting whatever we can from our locallly-owned shops, and we are fortunate to have a number of them. My favorite is Peapods, a natural baby and kid store where I can get my breast pump supplies, but there is also Linden Hills Natural Home, Baby Grand, and a couple others I have not visited yet. It feels good to put money into the local economy and support interesting businesses, plus, I don't really care for cutesy names that use "R us" or K's instead of C's, and behavior like that should be discouraged.

I was in Babies "R" Us to price car seats and look for preemie clothes. Those are not readily available in any great quantity at the local shops, though I did get a couple of cute things at Baby Grand. The carseat I am looking at is anywhere from $159 to $179, and it doesn't change much, so I will get it from the local people. We bought our co-sleeper and changing table/hutch/dresser monstrosity from people on Craigslist, and I hope to be able to get the rest of the things we need in town, though I may have to get the preemie prefolds online. It depends upon how big he is when he gets home. I'm knitting diaper covers while I pump.

The above paragraph is a prime example of what happens to my brain, without my permission. It's hard to stay on track, there are so many things going through it, and one things leads to another. I wind up somewhere I was not planning on being.

See? I just did it again.

My experience in "Babies R Us" reminded me of my experiences with weddings: there's big commerce in life-changing occurrences. Birth, Marriage, Death (in no particular order) are saturated in cash, fairly dripping in dollars. This was a slightly less crowded and demeaning Wal-Mart, focused on babies. I walked the whole store, realizing with relief that I won't ever need to go back there. I found three cute nursing tops, and they did have preemie clothes, but thanks to gifts, my cousin Andrew, and "Once Upon A Child" (don't EVEN get me started on THAT name), I may have enough teeny clothes.

Babies "R" Us and stores like it are pushing a materialism that's not really for me as well as overcomplicating baby- and childhood. The coupon book they gave me is six deals on formula, bottles, disposable diapers, and diaper genie accessories.

It goes right into recycling.