The ugliness of baby gear

Like most soon-to-be moms, I'm pretty excited to get everything ready for the arrival of our new baby (due date is now less than four months away - eek!). As I've mentioned before (here and here), we have a couple of registries for baby things, but those are as much for my own organization as they are a place for others to select baby gifts.

The trouble is that SO much of the baby stuff is just plain ugly. There are awful patterns and terrible colors. And so much brown. My husband hates brown, and I'm starting to get sick of it too.

Example #1: Nursing covers. I plan to nurse this little one, including possibly in public. They make nursing covers, but so many of them are hideous. Like this one:



That pattern is awful, and others are worse. All I really want is a plain one in some sort of non-brown color. You can get pretty colors with ugly patterns, or you can get plain ones in brown or black. Why not a plain red or blue one? Yes, I could just use a shawl, but the nursing covers have some nice functionality (the neck strap and special shape of them is nice).

Example #2: Car seats. I get that people try to be gender-neutral, but this one is awful. We picked out a car seat (obviously), but even the best-looking ones still aren't that great looking. Why do they all have to have dopey patterns?



Example #3: Laundry hampers. I'd hoped to get a bright-colored laundry hamper (red, for example) to bring more color into our baby room. I've basically given up - they don't exist. The only things that are available are ones like the picture below. While it isn't necessarily ugly, it's more pale colors. Why is it that there are NO bright colors? I've obviously looked in the grown-up sections for bright-colored hampers, too, but I just don't think they exist.



It's a bit of a frustrating process, to say the least. Maybe my standards are too high, but I don't think so. I don't think it's too much to ask for a little variety.

Is it?

Nesting already?

First, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We sure did. We got a lot of things for the new baby, which is very exciting. And I got a Snoogle body pillow! I'm very excited about it.

Since I've been back in town after the holidays, I've been running around like a crazy person getting ready for baby. I've taken this entire week off (it's pretty slow at work, and I needed some downtime), and I've already spent the first two days getting ready for baby. I've been all over town several times looking for all sorts of things (storage, curtains, etc.), and I've even been to the nearby Big Town every day this week. That town is about 25 minutes away and has many more stores than Pleasantville. Some people live in Big Town and make that commute to Pleasantville every day, but, prior to this week, I only averaged one trip a month out there or so. I've been there three times since Christmas.

The good news is that things are starting to get crossed off the list. SLOWLY. I bought curtains and curtain rods over the last few days. And storage bins for all over the house (I've suddenly decided that we aren't going to have enough room for all of the baby things).

Just before Christmas, we also decided on a fabric for the window valence and crib skirt. This decision was the biggest decorating one we've made, because all of the accessories and things are going to be based on this color scheme. We decided on this fabric:



Lots of fun colors in that fabric, so I got green curtains, red storage bins, and we'll be getting yellow sheets. We aren't allowed to paint the walls because we're renting, but we'll have lots of color in other aspects of the room.

I'm definitely a little freaked out by all of the things that we still need to buy and do, but we're getting there. In real life, I'm a big list-maker. Mix that with the nesting hormones from pregnancy, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Nursery pictures (in progress)

Last weekend, we put together the nursery furniture that we bought. So far, we already have a glider, a crib, and a changing table. Here's a picture of the work in progress:



We need to get a dresser, as I've mentioned before. I think I like this one:



It's from Target and got pretty good reviews. And, since it's from Target, we'll be able to use our credit card points to buy it.

I also think I want to get a wall decal for the room. Since we can't paint, we need to figure out another way to decorate. They make these wall decals that you can put on your walls temporarily, and I really like them. Here's an example of one that I really like:



My mom has generously offered to make a bedskirt and a window valence, but there's still all kinds of stuff to get. Curtains, a new frame for a poster that we already have (the old frame was really junky), little bins, at least one lamp... It's crazy! I'm not exactly stressed about it, but I'm glad we're starting early. It'll give plenty of time to find the things that are exactly what we cant, and, hopefully, we'll be able to get them for cheap.