21w0d - Week of crazy events

Long story short, do not fall in love with baby bedding before you are even pregnant.

The bedding I really wanted for a girl has long since been discontinued. What do you expect, it's been like 3 years! Before we knew the gender, I started doing some online searching and found a few new contenders. When gender was confirmed GIRL last week, we decided on one of them.

I was pretty excited as I had really come to like the idea of the bright pink and orange flowers. The bedding is part of the new spring line and isn't even in stores yet. Late last week it was available on Target.com with FREE shipping. Yeah! I went ahead and ordered it. My order confirmation came and it said the item wouldn't be shipped until mid-February to early-March. Oh well. We'll still have plenty of time. That was Wednesday. Friday comes along and I get an email saying my item has shipped and that it will arrive on Monday! Sweet!

Monday comes along and I'm super excited to get the bedding. Ughhhh - I open the package and the bedding looks nothing like it does in the pictures online. Online it looks like the bedding is white, the bedding I received is clearly blue.

On the left you have the bedding I was expecting, and on the right, the package that arrived.

Luckily ordering through Target.com, you can easily return the item to a local store.

Tuesday night we returned the bedding and also picked up our crib. We decided on the Graco Lauren in Espresso:

After the disappointment with the bedding, the hunt was back on. We found a couple that were high on the list, but before any decision was made, we did one more search for that long standing favorite. Viola! There it was. Amazing. One item in stock in a shop in WI! This was late Monday night, the bedding arrived on Wednesday! Perfect in every way, just as I had imagined it.

We went straight over to the paint store and selected the wall color. I can't wait to see it all come together! Did I mention this is going to be a totally girly room!?

Second crazy story of the week. We started looking at a few of the big items that we might want to add to our registry. This was a few weeks ago before we knew what the gender was. We had selected a travel system that would be perfect for a boy and another that would be perfect for a girl. Wouldn't you know it, we went to start our registry and the girl one was gone. We talked to someone who worked in the area and she said that one had been discontinued, and that they didn't know what would be coming in to replace it. She suggested we go to gracobaby.com and look at the items online.

Once I got to gracobaby I found a different travel system that I liked, maybe even better than the original one we had seen a few weeks before. There was a buy online button that took you to Amazon where you could place your order. This was Saturday. Today I get an email from Amazon telling me they have to cancel my order because they are not going to be able to get one from their sources. Shoot! I decided to call Graco and speak to their Customer Service area to see if they can help me locate one of these travel systems. I explained what happened with the Amazon order, and was placed on hold for about 15 minutes. She came back and said that because that item is really low in inventory that I could purchase it directly through them. I jumped at that opportunity, only to find out it's $30 cheaper and will be here in 5-7 days where as my estimated shipping window with Amazon, like the original bedding, would have been late-February to early -March. Needless to say, I am super excited, and hope nothing happens to this order!

This is the Graco MetroLite travel system in Isabella:

That pretty much wraps up the week. It feels really good to have the crib, bedding and paint. And hopefully next week we'll have our stroller system.

Last but not least, What's happening with baby: Week 21 - Banana. 10.5in, 12.7 oz

Baby gulps down several ounces of amniotic fluid every day, both for hydration and nutrition and to practice swallowing and digesting. And, these days, those taste buds actually work! Studies show that after birth, babies are most interested in tastes they've already experienced through amniotic fluid. Meaning, think about what you want your future child to eat as you prepare your own lunch.