Baby Gear

Since I am getting close to entering the “half-way” point of this pregnancy, I decided it was probably time to start researching all the items we will need to have in place when Baby Schardt arrives. I have been good thus far and not bought a single thing for the baby because I know once I start buying stuff I won’t be able to stop.

Late last week I fired up my Google search engine and began pouring through pages of baby gear consumer reports and “top 10 must have registry items”. I was immediately overwhelmed at the amount of stuff that is out there for babies. I tried to keep my searching to the most essential “start-up” items like cribs, car seats, strollers, and breast pumps, but was quickly distracted by all the adorable nursery bedding, stylish diaper bags, and cute clothes. It is a good thing that I like to shop and that I am a fairly decisive person or getting the nursery in order would be a nightmare. The only problem is; I want to make sure that all the gear I am buying is safe for Baby Schardt. I feel like every few weeks there is a 20/20 report about cribs or car seats hurting and even killing babies. However, I keep telling myself, you can only do so much research and then you just have to trust that the product you are buying is going to be safe. I figure, if I combine research with a vigilant eye on our baby, hopefully they will survive the first few critical years of life.

After all my clicking around on the internet, I decided to make an excel spreadsheet that I am calling my”baby gear wish list”. This is helping me to keep organized with all the items I am researching, and more importantly, to get a tentative idea of how much all this baby stuff is going to cost so we can start budgeting. We have not started a registry yet, I figure I will do that once we find out the sex in a few weeks. For now, I am having fun shopping around and day dreaming about what it will be like to actually put the baby in the car seat, crib, or stroller. And I keep telling myself that our grandparents successfully raised our parents, who are all healthy, happy humans, and they sure did not have all the latest baby technology available to them.

Look at how much baby gear has evolved...baby carriage to baby travel system pro

In other news, Matt and I enjoyed a wonderful, relaxing four day weekend in Crested Butte this past weekend. It was nice to get away from all the stress and craziness of life and just enjoy the beautiful mountains. Baby Schardt, Eros, and I got some good hiking and snowshoeing in, and Matt was able to ski. We also enjoyed visiting with my Dad and Carrie who were up for part of the weekend, and we brought up another couple from Matt’s unit who we have recently met. It was fun getting to know them better and we enjoyed their company.

My boys playing in the snow

Hiking Peanut Lake Road at 17 1/2 weeks.

I am 18 weeks today, time sure is flying by, I don’t know where the month of February went! We are looking forward to our doctor’s appointment on Friday, it is always comforting to hear the babies heart beat and ask any questions to the doctors we might have. Iwill post an update after.