Getting real

We had the baby shower. On Tuesday, we got new carpet put in what will be the baby's room (it had been this hideous orange carpet in there). Soon, we'll actually put together the crib.
Man, this is getting close now. Under 80 days.

There's so much great stuff we got at the shower, but there's just so much stuff out there you need to get to be prepared for a baby. Who would have thought it would be this complicated?
A real life-saver has been "Baby Bargains" ... an excellent book we picked up a little while back. It's sort of a super in-depth Consumer Reports on just baby stuff. (And our edition notes: "As seen on 'Oprah' " -- so how can you go wrong?)

Amanda has also been a regular over at ivillage.com, a Web community suggested to us by our friend Tammy, who recently had a baby and has another on the way (check for her blog, coming soon ...). Ivillage breaks up expectant mothers into the months their babies are due, which then allows people to get to know eachother in smaller groups and ensures that everyone is going through about the same things at about the same time.
It's an easy, useful, free online support group.
As with any online community, there's some Web shorthand. When I first saw Amanda refer to me as a "DH," I was confused about baseball terminology on a babymom-to-be Web site (besides, I like to think of myself more as a left fielder, despite my poor throwing arm; and here Amanda was relegating me to being a designated hitter). Turns out "DH" is "Dear Husband." That's all I needed to see ... now Ivillage is entirely hers. I tend to look elsewhere.
Still, without Ivillage, we never would have seen the "Weeblock" (https://www.inventiveparent.com/weeblock.htm). The site explains the device as follows: "Urine Shield Protects Baby Changers from, um, Showers." The thing looks like a spongy, kid-sized codpiece.

So, yes, there is a tremendous amount of stuff we still need to get, but there's also a tremendous amount of garbage. And we have about 11 weeks to sort one from the other.