Throwdown: Buy Buy vs backwards R

On a recent trip back to the US, my husband and I decided to strap on our 'consumer culture' belts and brave two places that have always caused me to break into a cold sweat.  Yes, that's right....  one afternoon it was the dual misery of Buy Buy Baby and Babies R Us. 

Holy ridiculous crap, Batman!

Look, I'm more than willing to admit that as a modern, first-world occupying human, I am ridiculously coddled.  I'm pretty sure that any of us reading this are ridiculously coddled.....  and if we don't recognize that we're all trying to fool ourselves.  But I'm starting to fear for the future if some of this stuff is for real.  I've previously dissed on wipe warmers because, well, come on people.  Even my mother, who is absolutely the sweetest person I've ever met (clearly I get my black humor from my father) gave a hearty guffaw when told of the existence of warmers for wipes.  I believe her statement was something like "if the kid can't get used to a cold wipe on its butt, it has a lot of disappointment coming down the pike".  Others have said something like "I had one of those - it's called rubbing the wipe together with my TWO HANDS". They come in portable versions for the car to boot! So, let's move on.

Personally, should we have a girl and she is born hairless and looking like a boy, you would sooner be able to kill me than strap one of those creepy looking headbands on her poor (likely splotchy) little head.  Seriously, how hard is it to say 'she's a girl'?  So hard that you'd rather trick your kid out in the equivalent of lacy baby bling?  Nor do I think I turned out too badly (caustic sarcasm aside) and I sucked on plenty of shopping cart handles... so there will be no customized shopping cart couch for this kid.  And, should precious' pacifier fall on the ground, you won't find me running back to the car to plug in my portable UV pacifier sterilization station.  No, I did not just make that up.  I'm also planning on testing bath water with my hand rather than using a temperature sensing rubber ducky.  Maybe, if I avoid buying this crazy plastic crap, we'll save enough petroleum to drive around in our classic car one day.

You can gaze upon endless selections of this garish, emotionally driven excess at either of the establishments listed above but honestly they do differ.  As disgusting as the name of Buy Buy Baby really happens to be, it seems to be less house of baby horrors and more like a Bed Bath & Beyond for the not yet truly mobile types, and I suppose it should be as the two are from the same parent company.  There were actually far more options in both size and design, and many more useful products to lay hands on in the 'BBB', complete with products made of actual natural materials and not just plastics.  It was quite amusing to watch my husband test drive strollers up the aisle.  Babies R Us, however, was another story.  This seemed to be a place where plastic was king, and size mattered.  Sort of like shopping for a stroller by comparing the self propelled versions of an Excursion and a Hummer, actually.  It struck me as a bit of a primer/feeder for the equally  nauseating Toys R Us that so conveniently seemed to be colonizing one side of the store.  It made me think they're trying to hook you and your kid on cheap plastic young so you'll be too addicted to say no by the time you're buying actual toys.  You know, first one's always free......

I've decided to start looking at things through a Michael Pollan style pair of glasses 'If your grandmother wouldn't recognize that as a tool for baby care, then don't buy it'.  This doesn't mean that there aren't some pretty cool things out there, but they seem to be improvements on things that have been used in the past, rather than inventions for our hyper sterilized, hyper gadget driven marketplace.

First stop, an internet thrift store!