Registering

The last time I registered for a gift registry for myself, it was 2004 and I was on the verge of marrying my first husband.

Sadly, like so many things that accompanied my first marriage, I put little-to-no thought into the endeavor. There was no rhyme or reason to it all. This, perhaps, is why we were the proud owners of a really neat coffee table doodad, but absolutely no stemware. I was not at all concerned with things of a lasting, practical nature, but rather wanted as many window dressings as I could find. None of this was particularly conscious thinking, of course. Again, little-to-no thought here. But as my marriage crumbled, it was pretty easy to see things such as our wedding gift registry as yet another sign of how little care I put into what was going on. Symbolism as far the eye could see, as far as the melodramatic person could stretch.

Oh but I do have great knives, though. I got those in the divorce.

Scott and I adamantly refused to register for anything when we got married – for one? Hi, tacky. Two? The people in our lives had not that long ago bought us presents for our first marriages, so, hi, tacky. Three? We didn’t want gifts or anything that remotely resembled our first marriages. Four? People in their 30s who have been on their own for a long spell, and are on their second marriages, probably don’t need to be asking for Corningware.

So here we are, just … 87 days away from our daughter’s due date, and I needed to get to registering. And it’s not that I believe that the registry of gifts for my first marriage and the registry of gifts for my first daughter are anything even remotely the same, it’s impossible for me not to be mentally and emotionally nudged and that, perhaps, I ought to not let the panic sweats of having absolutely no fucking idea about what babies “need” stop me from getting this thing done.

Yesterday, out of the goodness and love of her heart, my best friend, Ali, took me to Babies-R-Us for what I think was the most exhaustive, while simultaneously efficient, crash course in baby stuff registering that ever happened.

You have to understand something about my best friend – she suffers no fools. Plus, she’s never been one to get mired down in navel gazing. It’s not that she’s not reflective – she’s a writer, and so she very much is. It’s just that Al knows what works, and is wise enough not to deviate from the adage, “If it ain’t broke…” which tends to trip up most people.

We’ve been best friends for 15 years now, and while we have loads in common, the one, kindred truism that runs throughout the fabric of our friendship is our low tolerance for bullshit. However, between the two of us, I’ve always been the one who can be easily sidetracked by shiny objects. Ali is invaluable when it comes to keeping my eyes on the prize and to not be distracted by the unimportant in life.

So when you’re armed with a laser gun in a suburban Babies-R-Us, it the most behemoth of baby stores, there is no better person to have by your side than someone who can remind you that for as cracked-out adorable those onesies are, they are going to end up with poop, puke and drool all over them.

Within two hours, I learned how old our daughter may be when she first tries to use a sippy cup. I understood what all of those items in the breast pump kit actually do, and why it might be a good idea to hang a big, tacky netted hammock from the wall of my bathtub. Yesterday morning I learned what ointments were probably useless, and why it’s important to pay close attention to the width of the tip of a nasal aspirator. By noon I understood that it probably wasn’t a bad idea to register for both the bouncer chair and the swing, and that for as cute all of those newborn toys seemed to be, it’s unlikely our girl is going to be interested in any of them for a good long while.

“In the beginning,” she said, “They don’t do much but lie there.”

We registered for things I didn’t know existed, and more of items than I’d counted on. We talked about nursing bras and tanks, and what I’d need to bring with me to the hospital so that I wasn’t at the mercy of whatever they happened to have on hand. I understood what items did what, and why. I felt armed and ready.

Even better, I felt a certain connection to the sisterhood that I rarely feel. It’s not that I don’t have close women friends with whom I regularly feel a connection – far from it. But I suppose there is this part of being a woman, and the things that being this part of being a woman entails, that I was blessed to experience this Saturday.

There was the added bonus of not having to do all of the guess work myself. I won’t lie to you – it’s why my friend, Steve, helped pick out the nursery theme. It’s one of the many reasons why we’re working with a doula. My brain does not have the ability or the patience to sort of as many details as are being required at the moment. I can focus on all of these things in increments, but I’m not at all talented enough, or blessed with enough time, to do it on my own. In the process of asking for help, and reaching out to others, I’ve learned more than I ever would have had I tried to plow through by myself.

Last night as we were falling asleep, I had this quick flash of us coming home from the hospital with our daughter. Nothing was wrong; in fact, it was as mundane as could be. But HOLY SHIT. I bolted straight awake with the realization that we’re going to have a real live human being living with us in a couple of months. I said to Scott, “They’re going to let us take her home.” I’m pretty sure I said this to him several times, and I’m even more sure that I’m not the first person to have ever uttered that phrase.

I suppose with the registering, having a baby is finally becoming real in the most basic of day-to-day ways. I’m not at all panicked about the parenting part, the being a mom part. I don’t worry about what I’ll do or think or say about life stuff in general. But wow did it make my stomach flip when I realized that she’ll be in the car with us. I mean holy crap. IN THE CAR. And she’s going to LIVE WITH US.

Oy.

Almost every day now, I tell Scott that I hope she likes it here. He assures me that she will, but I suppose you never know. We’re good people, and I guess that’s a start. Mostly I look around and see things through a new filter. I wonder what parts of this place – the frames on the tables, the brand of toilet paper that we buy, the way it smells on a Sunday, how Glinny’s furballs dot every nook and cranny – will all eventually be burned into her memory, the way my memories of my childhood home are in mine.

I hope she likes Winnie-the-Pooh. He’s making an appearance in a lot of her things.

I hope she likes monkeys. I really love monkeys, and someday we’ll tell her the story of the episode of How I Met Your Mother, the one with the capuchin monkey, and how whenever my hormones went haywire, her Daddy would play a scene from that episode over and over again to make me cackle with laughter.

I hope she likes garlic. We cook with a lot of it in the Smith house.

These everyday, mundane things about our lives, her life. Oh I hope we’re doing it more right than wrong.