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I wouldn’t label myself as a procrastinator, but I do have a tendency to put most things off until the absolute last possible second, requiring a bit of fancy footwork on my part. I am no stranger to overnighting mail, paying late fees, pulling all-nighters to reach a deadline or otherwise bursting breathlessly into stores minutes before they close to procure whatever item I have delayed purchasing until the eleventh hour. What? I said I wouldn’t label myself. You are free to call me what you will. However, with a baby well on the way I realize I might have to tweak these tendencies. From what I hear babies will not simply eat a bag of stale Tostitos because they have not gone to the grocery store in a week, nor will a roll of paper towels double as a makeshift diaper should I run out at 3 a.m. I know that a baby will require a higher level of preparedness than I am accustomed to in my own life. So, recently some old college friends held a preemptive baby shower to slowly ease me into the all-consuming, all-encompassing world of baby paraphernalia. A few weeks beforehand, my old roommate, Elizabeth, who has two children of her own, called to see where I was registered. Oh yeah. Most people don’t buy their gift on the way to the shower the day of. Right.

“Why don’t you do it for me?” I wheedle. I am prepared to laugh it off as preposterous if she is mortified at my request. But I am serious. She, however, is a veteran of my last minute antics all throughout college—where I waited until the night before a final exam to study a semester’s worth of Western Civ, only to realize at midnight that I had sold my textbook back earlier that day. (Mom, Dad, I graduated, right? And look, I went on to be a productive member of society. So all’s well that ends well.)

“How about I just get you started?” She agreed. Lifesaver. Her kids will probably be sharing their sandwiches with my kids during school lunches. She emails me to let me know that she has started me off with a few necessary items and now I can fill in the rest. Naively confident, I log onto Babies R Us.

Have you ever seen the amount of supplies a baby needs? The sheer volume is staggering. How can something so tiny possibly require all that gear? And I don’t even know what most of it is for. Okay, diapers. Self-explanatory. But lap pads, crib pads, changing pads, breast pads—how much padding does a twenty-inch human need?! Maybe I’ll just start with a stroller. Now do I need the full size, the mid-size, the lightweight, the travel system, the jogging stroller, the double or triple? What about the stroller accessories? Isn’t that the baby? Or should I get a sling? A wrap? A Hip Hammock, or Comfort Rider, or a Deluxe Frontal Infant Carrier? And what is Carrier Netting? Is there much risk of malaria for infants?

Okay, okay calm down. I know—I’ll read the helpful reviews users post about each item. Wrong. Samantha from Portland’s infant absolutely loves her Boppy Bouncer Seat and could not imagine life without this Holy Grail of baby items. But Wayne from Chicago is in the midst of a law suit when his boppy seat was launched into oncoming traffic through a power surge from a faulty wire. After seventeen hours staring at the computer trying to decide whether the Rainforest Jumperoo or the 3-in-1 Exersaucer Triple Fun activity center will encourage more brain function, I throw my hands up in disgust. I fall to the floor in the fetal position moaning to Jeff that no matter what we do, our kid is destined to be wait-listed for college. How did humans ever manage to evolve, stand up straight, walk out of their caves and into the board room without all these items? And which ones did they buy?!

What happened to the good old days before Baby Einstein, when my parents used to sit me in the regular, old bathtub to play with “the toothbrush people?” I can recall hours of fun playing Hide and Seek in the laundry hamper that was really a plastic trash can, without the lid. I’m fairly confident, since we were the last people on earth to have Beta, and regularly fixed the picture on the TV by adjusting the wire hangers wrapped in tinfoil, that my parents did not have a video monitor to see whether or not I was choking on my crib toys. I also had no crib toys. But I do have vivid memories of sitting contentedly outside in a sand box listening to Lionel Ritchie tapes while my mom hung laundry on the clothesline. Their version of the Pack and Play was loading us in the back of the Rambler station wagon onto some blankets with an old pair of binoculars, so I could stare at the cars driving behind us. And though I do recognize the importance of safety features, I still think it just might be possible to raise a kid without every high-tech gadget in the world, and there’s a chance they might turn out to be productive members of society. Maybe not all together punctual, but productive nonetheless. I think I can live with that.

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