The Skates Family Baby Registries

Babies-R-Us

Registry #: 88281317

Amazon.com

USA Baby

Gift Registry ID#: 1591000219

Life Moves Pretty Fast...

“Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it!” –Ferris Buller

It has been a couple of weeks since we moved all of the furniture out of one of our spare bedrooms, which is now our nursery. The nursery has been empty, for about three weeks, all except for some baby clothes in the closet, a vintage, antique dresser that was my great aunt Lillian’s and about 40 pieces of white computer paper taped together to show where the baby furniture is to be placed. However, this week we have gotten the baby furniture delivered, thanks to the coolest father-in-law a guy could have. Bill, Laura’s dad, picked up our baby furniture and drove it all the way to Canton. We are now proud owners of one convertible baby bed and dressing station. Not to mention, all the new baby accessories we have acquired throughout the last few months. All of Laura’s new wardrobe… and my wonderful mother, who has bought us our high chair! It seems we have all this new stuff and we haven’t even had one shower, yet!

It is amazing, we don’t even have photos from our wedding yet, but we have all this baby stuff!

Our next goal is to gain some storage in our home… one thing is for sure… if we don’t I may go a little crazy!

The other day Laura and I were riding in the car discussing what we were gonna do on our upcoming trip to Disney World.

“We need to make sure we put the deposit down on the ‘citi-mini’ at USA Baby.” I said

The citi-mini is a travel stroller we saw in a store and would love to have it for our upcoming trip to Disney.

“We will, but we have some time…” replied Laura.

“Hey- what would you have said if someone had pulled us aside and told us the next time we would be at Disney we would be parents?” I said in a hushed tone as if it were a secret.

“I would of not been surprised” replied Laura in such a matter-of-fact tone. “It was our plan, wasn’t it?”

“Yes” I said, “but our last trip was this past December! I mean we weren’t even married yet!!! Sometimes I just look around and think, wow, I’m gonna be a dad! It just makes you realize how fast life changes…” I said.

“Yep, but I think it’s for the better, don’t you?” said Laura and she reached over and kissed my cheek. “You are gonna be a wonderful father.”

If you are lost… let me tell you a little bit about what I am talking about! Laura’s family and my family are all going to Disney World this September. You can read more about this at: You know when you’re a fan…

Laura and I have been wanting a ‘citi-mini’ stroller ever since we saw it in the store.

“I love how it just compacts like that,” said Laura very enthusiastically. “It’s perfect, it won’t be that heavy for you, I mean us to carry on the buses.”

Notice how she said, you first? Freudian-slip if I ever heard one.

“Yes, it is nice…” I said in agreement. “I like the red… easier to pick out in a crowd.”

“Definitely!” said Laura.

It is perfect for traveling and it would be almost impossible to take our “travel system” with us on the trip, no-less, the plane! Although, I am sure parents do it every day. However, Laura and I want as little as stress as possible… considering we will be traveling with an infant. And, in my old age… I have begun to hate flying. (Not so much flying, as lift-off!)

Funny how your priorities change, isn’t it? About a year ago we were discussing wedding plans… and I was working on paying for our honeymoon and now the baby. It seems like no matter who you are you are always in a constant flux of change. Okay, sorry, didn’t mean to get so Confucius on you all.

I guess the days of being jet setters are behind us… although, one day, when we are retired… oh, no, nevermind! HAHAHA!

Stress... stress go away...

It's Nursery Time!

The past few weekends it has felt like Laura and I had been doing nothing, but searching for the perfect crib for our newborn, well, unborn child. It feels like we have been to every baby furniture store in the Atlanta area! We had been to Babies-R-Us, and Target, USA Baby and Georgia Baby & Kids, etc… Why the city-wide search you ask? Well, we have a piece of reddish-cherry antique furniture that we are trying to match and the only place that matched it, perfectly, was Georgia Baby & Kids! Although, the name of the color we got was “papirika!” Go figure…

Carol & Bill, Laura’s mom and dad, wanted to come out to see the furniture we picked out before making the final decision. So, last Saturday we finally worked out all our schedules so that we could meet at GBK’s. (Please note that I will be using these initials due to the fact that retyping GA Baby & Kids seems like a daunting task). We had picked out the crib, but at the last minute changed our mind to a different one, same color, different style. (Oh, I know how this sounds so exciting and I will probably elaborate and tell this very story at different social events throughout the season, so stay tuned!) Then, unbeknownst to us, we were asked by the sales clerk…

“What about a mattress?”

“What about a mattress?” I said. “Do we need a mattress you mean?”

“Yes!” the clerk said in a surprised voice, which is a pretty stupid question if you ask me, but I guess I could assume that he thought we might already have one… blah blah blah, but we told him this was our first time buying baby furniture! Oh well…

“Yes” Laura and I replied, in unison. “I think we need a mattress.”

He strolled over to the area where about five different mattress, all wrapped up in their zipped-up glory, laying propped up on various beds and cribs.

“Now this one…” he began… “is great!”

I quickly interjected, and jokingly asked “Do they have a temperpedic baby mattress?”

“Well,” he said, “they do have something that has memory foam, sorta like a temperpedic!”

Laura looked at me with eyes of “I cannot believe you just asked him that!”

I can usually read both Laura’s tone and look… and this time it was the look of “please don’t say something crazy…”
Because I am known to ask crazy questions… but I will get to that at a later time.

“This mattress is water resistant and can…” I pretty much lost him at this point and had already chosen this mattress in my head… so the rest of what he said was all said in a Charlie Brown teacher voice…”Whaaa whaa whaaa whaa whaa wha…”

You get the idea.

So, we picked out a crib, changing table and a mattress… is there more to it? Yes, but, for some reason I wasn’t aware of it!
Laura went on to ask for all the gadgets and rails that you need on down-the-road for when the crib converts into a big person bed. Yes, this crib converts… I never can picture the bed turning into a real bed until I see pictures of it. My imagination just won’t work that way, I guess. But, as soon as I saw the picture I thought…

“Oh, okay, that is what it will look like, great!” also in the back of my mind thinking… “I dread that day because 1. the instructions will be no where to be found as well as all the nuts, bolts, etc… and me, put stuff together…” I laugh, laugh, I do!
Do you hear me laughing? Picture the count from Seasame Street! “Ah Ah ah!”

Anyway, we go to the front, the papers are signed and we have purchased Baby Furniture! Wha la!

Now, having it delivered is a different story… they are suppose to come in and assemble it. Yes, we will see…
Let’s hope it isn’t like “Rooms-to-go” assembles things…

“Here you go!” said the fat, sweaty delivery man.

“Thank you, but wait! Where are you going?”

“That’s it”

“But, the table is in the box! Aren’t you going to put it together?”

“We don’t do that, Sir.”

Until next time!

Poop, don't pee!

Not a whole lot has transpired since my lastest blog entry, so basically that is why I haven’t posted until now.

I wanted to tell you all about what happened this past weekend on Saturday. Let me set the story up for you: My sister, Mandy and my hardworking-never-put-down-the-phone mom came down to Kennesaw for the day to do some shopping and we had agreed, on Friday, if they brought Everett we would be happy to watch him while they frolicked around the town buying this and that… Laura and I were certainly happy to oblige because Everett is a fun-loving little boy who is easy to take care of. This was the first day for me to take a little boy to the bathroom in a public place. Quite a fun run-through for what is about to come. We were in a store called “USA Baby,” which is basically a condensed and more personal version of Babies-R-Us. Laura and I were walking around looking at the various things we may want to register for and after looking at bottles, bibs, strollers & diaper bags Mandy asked Everett the dun-dun-dun question.

“Do you need to go potty?”

“No.” Everett replied with a coy smile.

“Why doesn’t uncle Eric take you to pee pee?”

Everett continues to smile and shake his head no, which means in child talk, “I do need to go but I don’t wanna go right now.”

I am learning more and more I hang out with kids the in’s and out’s, although I think I am pretty far from father-to-be of the year.

So, I proceeded to pick Everett up and strut back toward the bathroom.

“I want mommy, I want mommy to do it,” Everett says in a ever-so sad and whining voice.

I thought to myself, “Do I risk a child yelling for his mommy from the bathroom in a public place or should I just take him back and hope for the best?”

I went ahead and took him back and he did his thing and everything was hunky dory, this time.

Fast forward, a few hours, Laura and I take Everett home to play with Andy and Logan, and while there Annagrace and Jenn came over for a quick and pleasantly surprised play-date, complete with bubbles! We all went outside and sat on the deck to watch the kids play with the dogs and their bubbles and that is when it was suggested to take Everett inside to "use the potty." Now, please understand we do not have one of those "little baby potties" so when I took him into the downstairs bathroom I had to hold him on the seat so he would not fall in!

"Okay Everett, time to poop," I said to him.

He just looked at me with a deteremined look on his face and low and behold he starts to............ pee!!!! No, not poop, pee! Pee went all over me, him, the floor and potty!

"No!!! Everett No! Laura, Laura help!" I couldn't help, but laugh at the situation because I knew if I looked upset it would make Everett upset and I did not want him to cry! Thankfully, Laura came running the rescue with some wips, Jenn, so conveniently, had in Annagrace's diaper bag, and some clean clothes, minus new socks let me add. Everett has a thing about wearing shoes sans socks. But, this time it was okay. (Thank God!)

"I'm sorry, Everett, but you're okay, right?"

""Yah, I'm okay," he said..."but your floor is dirty! Why don't you clean?!"

"I'm not sure, Everett, I will work on that okay?"

"Okay," he said.

With Everett all clean after the shower of pee, I asked him if he was done and he immediatly said...

"Yes, I wanna go outside!"

We went outside and the crisis of the "I wanna go home call" was averted, yet again!!!

So, moral of the story... Always have a little boy stand up and pee before he tries to poop and have some extra clothes and clean socks, just in case!

All has been permanetly burned into my subcranium... What is my next lesson? Don't know, but lets hope it is a little more sanitary!

This week has just started and I am all ready to begin the weekend… Until next time!

Welcome to Unisex Babyland!

To quote Robin Williams...

"This is beyond obsession!"

Is it just me or when people say “when you have a baby nothing will be the same” just kind of sound stupid and sort of like a “here’s your sign” kind of remark? Of freakin’ course your lives will never be the same… because you are basically deciding to alter your lifestyle by compromising everything you've ever done or thought of doing, up until now, that is.

Picture it like you are getting a roommate, but this roommate doesn’t pay for anything… he or she is a very small, tempermental, needy, whiny roommate that you will love with every fiber of your being.

Laura and I got married in June and for two years we basically thought about our upcoming wedding… well now, it’s baby-time! As Franc from “Father of the Bride 2” would say “Welcome to Babyland.” Now that we have broken the news to everyone we will surely go out and do the inevitable Baby Register… and for those of you who do not know…(and if you are reading this I am pretty sure you are on an educational level where you know what a Baby Registry is…) I digress, so beyond online registries we will go to Babies-R-Us, the break-off store of Toys-R-Us, the place you used to scream and kick to go to just so you could see all those toys in one place all at the same time! After having a kid for a while, you will most surely end up going back, but not for yourself. Okay, sorry, where was I, the Baby Registry, right? Laura and I have visited this store on several occasions and I will not divulge to you the amount because you will revert back to the aforementioned quote at the beginning of this blog. It seems having a child is quite the pricy quest… everything we have thought about registering for or have been told we “need” is atleast $150-$250… a travel system, high chair, bouner thingy, gliders, not to mention breast pumps, car seats, baby furniture, etc… it honestly adds up really quick!!! I, however, am not going to worry about this because if I do, I may die. It’s as simple as that!

Moving on, I think books are a great source of knowledge, (between us we have four, I think) but I think experience is the best thing to have, so we appreciate all the advice everyone has had for us as newlywed parents. This is going to be a whole new world for us and we are so lucky to have such an amazing support system behind us.

We are slowly starting the process of turning our spare room into “Babyland,” and our spare bathroom into “Babyland jungle,” (we are doing jungle because the room is already green and we do NOT want to repaint!)but not even sure where to begin… although, we cannot truly do much until December when we know the sex of Baby Skates! Speaking of, if you haven’t done so, be sure to vote on the sex of Baby Skates on the poll to your right! Well, sadly, until December everything will be unisex colors, yellow & green… Or, we could do what my mom and sister are doing… which is buying girl stuff & boy stuff and getting gift receipts, but I see that as a lot of work, so until the time comes we are gonna be (the word that is hardly ever uttered out of my mouth) patient!

Stay tuned…