One of everything, please...

So today my mother pushed her invalid daughter (that would be me) around the local Babies R Us in a wheelchair for about an hour. Her application for sainthood should be arriving in the mail any day now (Do they cannonize Jews? No? Oh well...) After my shower on Sunday, I was thrilled to realize that there still plenty things on my registry that I could go out and purchase myself (no sarcasm there--I was bummed out by the prospect of getting everything on my list and having no excuse to roam the aisles of the baby mecca myself).

Between breakfast and snack (ah, the life of the diabetic), I made my escape. I even slapped on a fresh face of makeup, because let's face it, after 105 days in bed, shopping for breast pads is a luxurious treat worthy of foundation, blush, mascara and a kicky lipstick.

Before I even get to the store, let me say how fabulous it is to step outside into spring and feel normal enough to say, "Gosh, Husband really needs to mow the lawn." Or, "Neat, somebody returned our recycling bin!" (who temporarily absconds with a recycling bin and then returns it under cover of the night? And what where they doing with it when they had it? I shudder to think...) I am in love with spring and the fluffy white dandelions choking our "lawn". I'm glad my front porch is inanimate and therefore incapable of suffering from allergies, because the layer of golden pollen on our red concrete is about 2 inches thick and I know I'm not getting out there to sweep anytime soon...

Let me say this about the whole wheelchair experience--while I am eternally grateful for the full use of my lower extemities and would never wish to rely on a wheelchair for mobility, it truly kicks ass to be wheeled around a big old store like Babies R Us. I've grown quite fond of allowing someone else to push me from one place to another (if you recall, I truly enjoyed my wheelchair trips in the hospital to an almost amusement-park like extent).

Although, I felt badly for my mom; I was a bit snippety about where she stopped me (mid-aisle, faced away from products, two feet past something I wanted to see, etc.) but it occurred to me--if you're not the person in the chair, it's really hard to get the perspective of the person in the chair. I felt like Tyra Banks putting on the "fat suit" and going out into public to do an expose on what it's like to be obese. Only in this case I was faking paralysis, not being fat----I AM fat, no need to fake that one, sister!

We printed up my registry so I'd have some idea of what I still "needed." Let's be clear about this--what I "need" is some diapers and a boob. End of story. Baby would survive quite nicely with just those accomodations, thank you very much. BUT, how do you resist the lambie mobile for his crib or the tiny boppy pillow for "tummy time"? How could I roll on past the multi-pak of hooded bath towels when I only received a quarter of a million of them at my shower??!!! It can't be done. And of course, baby needs at least one bib for every color of the rainbow and bottles with every conceivable type of nipple for seemingly every day of development. Sheets for the crib mattress we have yet to purchase. Closet organizers for the towels and blankets and clothes. These things mysteriously jumped into the mini-cart attached to my two-wheeler hot rod.

Truly, the only thing that brought our little spree to a close was the fact that we ran out of room in the tiny little cart that was attached to my chair. That seemed entirely unfair. Other women were strolling the store with their full-sized carts and they got to spend way more money than I did, just on volume alone! This would definitely be part of my "expose" on having to shop in a wheelchair...spending power discrimination. Believe me, after almost four months in bed, I was ready to spend!!! My piggy bank is spilling over with change right now and I wanted to give it all to Babies R Us...but as soon as we had to start setting things in my lap, mom called our aisle-hopping to an end. Sadly, I had to concur, because I was going to have to start holding things between my teeth otherwise (oh, and because she was pushing me around and with the cart full, I was incredibly trapped--I couldn't just get out and run away from her!)

So then we drove home and I was ordered back to bed while she unloaded the loot and stacked it neatly somewhere downstairs. Later on, when no one is looking, I am going to sneak downstairs and ohhh & ahhh at it all again.