The crazy world of baby products

This weekend, the Mrs. and I carved out some time on Saturday for our monthly pre-planned date time (see the BB's Big Night Out entry) and decided to finish up our baby registry process while near Richmond. We had already visited with the good folks at Target to set up an initial baby registry and knew that we wanted to supplement that with a registry at a local shop in downtown Richmond called Franklin Goose (website here). We also thought we might set up a registry at BabiesRUs as well (more on that later).

When we stumbled upon Franklin Goose a few years ago, we thought it would be a great little store to buy toys for our precious niece Kaylynn. It also opened our eyes to the world of cloth diapering which we mentally filed away for sometime down the road. Since the Mrs. and I have decided to cloth diaper little BB, the time has come to reach into the mental filing cabinet and bring out that record on Franklin and his fantastic stash of baby backside covers.

Before I describe our experience in the wonderful world of Mr. Goose, let’s pause a minute on the cloth diapering thing. We know that many of you will think we are absolute raving lunatics for thinking about using cloth diapers. After all, that means we’ll likely have to touch the unfortunate after effects of BB’s first forays into the food world. We’ll even have to, shock and awe, wash these soiled linens in our washing machine.

Oh come on people.

Anyone who has tried to change a disposable diaper on a squirmy child knows that you’re going to get a little bit of poo on you every once in a while. And although this is my first child, I’m decently positive that even with those disposables the clothing itself may get a little bit of funk on it. If handled properly, all of that stuff will wash off and the cloth diapers will be better for the environment in the long run. Also, the disposable diaper wasn’t invented until the 1940s or 1950s (depending on where you go to find the info. Good timeline here) which means for many years parents the world over dealt with cloth diapers or other ways of containing infant waste.

Also, we’re the kid’s parents so we get to make the decision here and we have decided to go with cloth diapers. I promise, the industry has come a long way from the way it used to be done (at least that’s what the internet says, I certainly didn’t experience the truly old school, pre-40’s cloth diapers).

So, now that that aside is done, I can talk about the amazing experience we had with the Goose. When we got there the place was quite crowded and a little overwhelming. They had redecorated since I was last there (to buy a present for the niece) so I was a bit disoriented. Throw in a couple of children sampling the toys around the store and the whole thing was a bit much. Little did I know that a bit much was just the tip of the iceberg.

We met up with our new registry assistant Amanda at the counter and declared that we wanted to start a registry. She excitedly grabbed her pen and paper and off we went. We began with the standard stuff (I guess it’s standard stuff…) of the baby shampoos and lotions. From that foray into the infant childcare world, I’ve come to the conclusion that babies have more products for their skin than ladies. Perhaps we could open a new store, Bath and Baby Works…I’ll have to think on that one…

At any rate, Amanda was able to explain the benefits and negatives of the traditional products for baby cleanliness. It seems that there are some pretty scary chemicals in the traditional stuff. We have since independently verified this information through the SkinDeep Cosmetics Registry. We have included some safe products on our Goose registry as well as tweaked the Target one with low risk products too.

I’ll glaze over the less exciting items in the Goose registration process and won’t even go into all of the details of the diaper room. Yes, you read that correctly, they have an entire room dedicated to diapers. We spent an hour in there learning about, literally, every product they carry. Amanda was incredibly generous with her time and knowledge. Lyndsie was incredibly generous with my ignorance.

There is one product on our registry that I really want to highlight because of its story. The Rockin Baby Sling is a great product from a company that seems to truly care. By now, you all are probably familiar with the Toms Shoes concept of buy one, give one, whereby Toms donates a pair of shoes to a needy child for every pair that you buy. Rockin Baby does something similar by donating a baby-carrying sling to a mother in Haiti complete with an educational session on proper use. As Amanda was telling us about this company and the woman behind it, Lyndsie and I got chills because of the power of the mission this company has undertaken. Not only do we have a heart for Haiti now, but we know firsthand the lack of resources that Haitians mothers have. The best part of the Rockin Baby company? It’s based out of Richmond. Local product? Check. Global impact? Check. We, of course, had to add one to our registry.

All told, the Franklin Goose baby registry process took over 2 hours to complete. We were not expecting that to take so long but we are so thankful that it did. The staff (and even the patrons) of Franklin Goose were so helpful towards us as we asked question after question. It was more than a registry experience, it was almost an educational seminar for us at the same time. Conveniently, the old Goose offers those too.

After all that, BabiesRUs was out the window.

So, I know what you must be thinking right now, they registered for some things at a “normal” store (Target) but put a majority of their registry on an up-scale, yuppy, specialty store in Richmond (where we may or may not live). To you feeling this way, hear (or read?) us out for a second.

1) We do not, in any way, expect our friends or family to buy us gifts. There is no magic price range we think people should fall into. There is no magic amount of items we expect from each person. We chose to get into this parenting thing and knew full well the commitment we were making. If some of you choose to help us, then we are grateful for whatever assistance you are able to provide, from hugs and prayers to physical items.

2) Although we are decently loyal to Mr. Goose and his cadre of friendly worker bees, we would not be offended if you printed off the old registry and found the items elsewhere. Conveniently, Franklin Goose offers an online shopping option and a $5 flat rate shipping which could also help.

3) Some of the items are a little pricey. If you choose to get a gift for a shower or other occasion, we truly would be ecstatic to open it up and find one cloth diaper off the registry as opposed to fifteen onesies and outfits that the child will outgrow in a week or so. Again, we are just appreciative of the support that you all are providing us no matter how big or small.

This whole baby thing is a new world for the Mrs. and I. We are grateful for the support that each of you gives us and can’t wait to see how things play out. When it comes to the world of baby stuff, we’re just trying to figure out what is best for the continued health of our little bundle of joy. We’ve made some other decisions about the products and patterns we’ll put on the child early on and we’ll share those shortly.