15 weeks

Luckily, we've had an uneventful week. Christmas was sort of a non-event for us because I'm on call for the day and Gregg is on call for the weekend. I've been doing a lot of laying around taking phone calls. At least one family that I saw yesterday spent the night in the emergency room with their two year old who had stuffed a french fry so far up her nose that I couldn't safely remove it. While I laughed, her parents did not. Quite an uncomfortable moment. They will laugh about it someday. Working with children all day, every day, I know how frustrating they can be, but I do a lot of laughing at things kids do and say (a classic conversation: "what is these dots on you face?" my response, "I bought them for decoration." child's very serious response, "hmph. so they washable?"). I hope my laughter is not because I'm not a parent yet. I hope I will still find children funny after caring for them for 24 hours a day rather than just 10-12.

We've started thinking about baby gear lately. Prior to imminent parenthood, you might over hear me saying things like, "I will never buy a $700 stroller, Never, never, never" while shaking my head in amazement at the folly of new parents. I felt emboldened by some article that said how much money you could make over the years by investing $700 in some other way.

Then, ummm, we started researching strollers...and, errr, ummm,...it turns out we're $700 stroller people. How does this happen? Okay, first of all, we live on a 13 acre homestead and need a stroller that can manage our long grass and dirt paths with ease (and I need to be able to rinse chicken poop off of it with a garden hose). This puts us in the $500 range right off the bat. Secondly, one of our cars is very small and no stroller will fit into the trunk other than the one we have our eyes on, especially not a twin stroller. Thirdly, well, strollers need to be versatile. As my cousin pointed out, you could end up with one for each situation. Our living space just couldn't accommodate more than one stroller. Also, they have to be easy on the eyes, light, and manageable. Also, we're having twins, if I didn't already mention it, which I did. One $700 stroller, coming right up.

While Gregg initially balked, (I mean, who in their right mind wouldn't initially barf at that price?), when he actually saw one belonging to a friend in person, his eyes went wide with desire and a thin rope of spittle leaked out from the corner of his mouth as he said, "wow, look at those welds!" and I knew he would be shelling out the big bucks. As he aptly pointed out, it's like buying a really nice mountain or road cycle. I cannot find a used one on ebay or Craigslist, so I know this particular stroller is not given up easily, a good sign in terms of longevity, ease of use, design, blah blah blah, and the company is environmentally conscious it seems, so that's nice.

Come to think of it, it's been at least a decade since the dawn of the $700 stroller and the associated stroller wars and media outrage, so I guess we're not too bad on the conspicuous consumption front. There is plenty of $700 stroller guilt amongst my peers, a pathologically guilt-ridden generation if you ask me. I could go on about this and whose fault that is, but I won't.

And so you will now overhear me saying, "I will never, never, never buy a $1200 stroller. Never, never, never". They're out there. They exist. I've seen them. Can you believe anyone would buy a $1200 stroller?

I am just reminded about how many times I said to myself that I would never do IVF. Will she ever learn?