Jessica Casarez
The Signal
With all the information at your fingertips today, a person can pretty much become an instant expert on anything, right? Wrong. It appears it is going to take much more than a series of books and YouTube videos to teach my husband and myself how to prepare and care for our upcoming baby.
It is not like we can blame our ignorance on our “young” age. We stopped qualifying to appear on “Sixteen and
Pregnant” more than a decade ago. This whole experience is just so new and unexpected to us. While we are both extremely excited about becoming parents, there is also a slight feeling of terror.
The other day we made a simple visit to Babies “R” Us to browse the aisles and familiarize ourselves with the overabundant choices of baby products. Talk about information overload.
Every baby product we came across is available in so many sizes, shapes and prices. How the heck are first-time parents supposed to choose?
As we walked by a stroller that caught our attention, we stopped to examine it more closely.
“Let’s see how this works,” I said to my husband as I tried to fold the stroller. It wouldn’t fold.
After seeing me fail miserably, my husband decided to put some muscle into it. He had a smirk on his face, like the big strong man was going to show his damsel in distress how it’s done. That stupid stroller did not even budge.
Remembering that we were still in the public eye, we tried to act cool and put the stroller back in its original place. We agreed perhaps it would be wise to return to the store and attempt these gadgets at a later time when fewer people were around. Needless to say, we are still in the market for a stroller that is more user friendly.
Since my husband had agreed to my idea of going to Babies “R” Us, he convinced me to go to another place to shop for a baby “necessity.” Imagine my surprise when we pulled into a car dealership. He tried to justify himself by explaining how his current vehicle would not have the room and accessibility for a baby. Leave it to a man to utilize this opportunity to buy a new truck.
Perhaps his incentive for this new vehicle began growing when we were looking at baby monitors. Long gone are the days when a baby only required a sound monitor to hear them in the other room. Nowadays, there are video monitors, which come with all kinds of resolution, touch screens and screen preferences.
I think I better be in charge of selecting the monitor or my husband might bring home a new 80” plasma television.
I am supposed to begin registering for my baby shower soon, and I have no idea where to begin. How can there be so many items for one baby? How can something so tiny occupy so much space and require so many things?
Although we have so much to learn about becoming parents, my husband and I are prepared to work together as a team and embrace it with a positive outlook. We may need to attend some preparation courses on some of the essentials, such as how to properly install a car seat so our son’s head doesn’t end up in his lap.
Our baby is due to make his appearance in about three months. As we continue preparing for his debut, we keep telling ourselves the same thing to ease the process: it could have been twins.
