Shower Shopping

For the most part, I have made huge strides in buying baby shower gifts and what I like to call yay you were born gifts.  I will often buy a small gift for a family member or friend who has recently had a baby.  I try to give it to them in person when visiting with them and their newborn.  But with having family and friends all over the place, I will sometimes mail packages.


So, as I was going out to shop for a friend's baby shower, T~ asked to go with me since it is a mutual couple friend.  I thought that was very sweet.  He was kind of excited to go shopping and pick something out, especially since her husband was surprising her with doing the nursery.


The couple had done the registry and shopped for the crib together, but he did everything else in putting it all together.  And because they had a variety of things, her husband really could have gone in several directions.  I really liked the eclectic feel of the registry and that it wasn't just one solid theme.  It was a mix of monkeys, giraffes and sports with blues, greens and browns.  The nursery turned out super cute!  It felt like a little boy's room with room for him to grow into the person he will become.


But, I had that twinge of sadness while T~ and I were shopping.  Many times it is a brief, quickly passing sadness--felt and gone within a breath.  But on that day, I felt a bit more of the sting and I soon just wanted to get the shopping done.  When we printed out the registry, I saw the list included giraffe themed items.  I love giraffes.  I always hoped to sneak them in when I had hoped for a baby.  I felt sad because these were items that I would have loved picking out or buying for my baby.  Then, it was rare to see giraffe items, but now they are all over the place.


T~ was excited when he saw the giraffe baby things and said we should buy those since I like giraffes.  I believe his thinking was that there would be a connection and appreciation with the giraffe items coming from me.  I did not say anything, but I almost wanted to buy anything but the giraffe things.  So, I suggested browsing around at a bunch of things and see what we liked.  It turned out that the store happened not to be stocked with everything on the list so it made it difficult to buy several items from one of the several themes.  It was a bit of a relief, so we bought a variety of items.  One of them included giraffes, so that was more within my comfort zone and I could ease back into enjoying the shopping trip instead of feeling like it was another chore.  And I was even more pleased once I saw the nursery since it was a nice balance of everything.