Moms are awesome (especially mine)

My mom left on Monday after a long weekend visit and I couldn't seem to stop crying after dropping her off at the airport.  Dang these pregnancy hormones!  I am so happy that she came out here for a bit.  I was worried that I wasn't going to get to see her during this pregnancy.  Sure, I saw her when I was was about ten weeks along but that isn't the same as 24 weeks!  We alternate holidays between both sides of our family and this year we'll be spending time with my husband's side so technically we weren't due for a visit with my family until the baby is born.  But my mom surprised me two weeks ago and said, "So...what are you doing the weekend of the 27th? I found a cheap ticket and I'm thinking of coming out there."  I was so excited!!

Mostly we just hung out - which was the best! - but we also got some registering done for the baby.  It made such a difference having her here and having her advice through the process.  I could ask, "What do you think?  This baby bath or the other?"  And, "Do I really need a swing for the baby?"  (The answer was "yes," by the way.  But we did decide that since space is limited in my place that a portable swing would work just as well as a full-sized one.)  If she hadn't come out here, I don't know when I would have buckled down to register.  All of the "stuff" the baby needs is completely overwhelming to me and so I continued to put it off.  I did register for a few things online before my mom got here though and that was based on suggestions from my friend Michaela who has a four-month-old daughter.  She sent me the most amazing list of what she found to be essential when her daughter was born.  What made it better than most lists I've seen is that she told me WHY she liked what she did and how it worked to help her and her baby.  She even provided links in her email to all of the products online, so I clicked through every one of them and registered for the ones I thought could/would work for us.

The thing was, a lot of the products were found at different sites - not all at one store.  So I found MyRegistry.com and signed up for an account.  It's like Pinterest in that you add an icon to your bookmark bar and then whenever you see something you like online, you can easily add it to your registry by clicking the icon.  I thought I would just use it to put everything in one place.  But then I saw that you can sync your registries from other stores onto your account at MyRegistry.  So instead of telling people, "We're registered at BabiesRUs AND BuyBuy Baby AND MyRegistry," we can just send them to MyRegistry and everything is in one place.  This way, family members that aren't as "down" with online shopping can go to the actual brick-and-mortar storefronts where we're registered and shop there.  And those that prefer to shop online can do so all from one site.  Fingers crossed that it works as well as I think it will!

As far as the items that we registered for, I'm going to hold off on making any recommendations just yet...since I don't know how well everything will work once baby arrives!  If you are looking for personal recommendations, Little Baby Garvin just posted a list of her Baby Registry Must-Haves this week that is great.  Her daughter is seven months old now, so her opinions are based on a lot of use.  I can't wait to be able to curate my own list, once Baby S. is born, after road-testing all of the products!

My mom quipped while she was here:  "I know why our economy is doing better.  Everyone stayed home when things got really bad in '08, '09 so they wouldn't spend money. But they did...other things...for entertainment.  And now we have all these babies.  And babies need A LOT OF STUFF.  Economy fixed."  Ok, I paraphrased a bit, but you get the idea.  More babies means more stuff means more money spent...ta-da!  I'm just doing my part to get our country back on track ;)