Put the gun down and back away (Getting trigger happy at Babies R Us)

There is nothing that will evoke fear out of a grown man faster than when his bride-to-be or wife-with-child says, "honey, we need to register."  *Dun-dun-DUNNN*  Upon remember the painfully long 2 hours Jake and I spent at Bed Bath and Beyond to complete our wedding registry, I vowed that I would never do that to him- or myself- ever again.  So when it came time to register for all things baby, I took it upon myself to get the job done.  After all, he wasn't ever going to have an opinion on what color nursing pillow I register for.  And what does he care what kind of nipple we use?  In fact, when I found myself standing n front of the "wall o' nipples" at our local Babies R Us, I started to wonder what do I really care about what kind of nipple goes on our bottles? Nipples are nipples, right?

Wrong.  So wrong.  I have never heard a person talk about these little rubber sucking devices with such fervency as the sales associate did that day.  Holy mother of God.  Apparently it does matter, and there is in fact, something called nipple confusion.  So what did I do?  I got trigger happy.  I scanned anything and everything that looked like it might be "Top Rated" or "The Safest" or "BPA free" or "Less Colic."  I am convinced now more than ever that in America, we are paralyzed by options.  Go down the freakin' toothpaste aisle at your local Target and you'll see what I mean.  And if you think that's bad, go look at nipples at Babies R Us.  It's truly eye opening.

I realized that I had neither the time, energy or comfortable shoes to spend an hour in each aisle over analyzing baby products.  Luckily, I had done some online research of certain baby products and gear ahead of time, so I was able to move rather quickly through the process.  The bigger items like the travel system, pack-n-play and swing were checked off quickly as I had already determined which styles I wanted.  Surprisingly, the smaller items like bibs, washcloths and hooded towels proved to be more time consuming.  All the while, I'm thinking, they're going to get bodily fluids on them, why should I care so much whether they start off being mod or retro inspired?  However, registering for gender neutral items is not as easy as it might have once been, and I was constantly checking myself to make sure my choices didn't provide any clues as to baby's gender.  By the time I made it to toys, I was randomly scanning bugs that played musical tunes, farm animals with mirrors and shapes affixed to their bodies and anything else that looked worthy of drool and baby teeth marks.  It didn't matter.  Check and check.  

I have no idea what shape my registry is in right now and have only gone online since then just to make sure there were no duplicates of anything.  I walked out of Babies R Us that day and had no inclination whatsoever to look back.  I spent a relatively short amount of time with the scan gun, but this is not to say that I didn't put some thought into a lot of the selections.  It's just that at some point insanity encroaches, you find yourself wanting a chocolate chip bagel from the Panera next door and your feet are screaming obscenities at you.  When all is said and done, you leave with a whopping 157 things on your registry and think how the hell did that happen? 

I didn't look closely enough, but I'm guessing that at least 38 of those 157 items are nipples...