Happy 4th of July!

We've been untraditional in our celebration this year. Instead of celebrating our independence, we've spent much of our time planning for our little "dependent."

Courtesy of grandparents, Max now has a crib & mattress as well as a stroller & carseat. Plus, through generosity from friends, he's received quite a few snuggly outfits, room accessories, a Diaper Genie, and a bouncer seat. With his baby paraphernalia, it's beginning to look like a nursery on one end of our bedroom.Babies R Us must recognize us on sight. (For some reason, Garrett seems to enjoy going there, but he preferred to register at Target online. What's up with that? I'm a Target fanatic. Um, maybe I just answered my own question.)

We went to get the crib today. It should have been easy; we had it all picked out. My mom and I had selected one and Garrett approved. We intended to wait until my mom came to visit to get the crib, but my friends Katie and Ange cautioned that it can take 8 weeks to order a crib. This little warning worried me since Max is due in 10 weeks. My concern must have been contagious because Garrett proclaimed he wanted to put together the crib on his day off. Anyway, we decided to buy it today.

Guess what? It was discontinued! Their last one was sitting on the showroom floor, covered in plastic, wearing a sign that declared SOLD. We found another one that's similar, so we're just as happy. Garrett put it together. It's cheerily waiting to welcome Max.

However, the crib is not the first discontinued item we've selected.

We have a knack for them.

Our stroller arrived Monday, and it was the third one we selected. I can collapse it with one hand. Oh yeah. Plus, the black, ice blue, and silver colors look cool. The stroller is definitely a little boy's mode of transportation.The first stroller we selected was impossible to collapse unless you're the Incredible Hulk. The second one seemed perfect because it had a trigger unit that I could easily maneuver. We immediately fell in love with it. Actually, I think it was the one that caught our eyes at the very beginning. We wanted to add it to the registry, but couldn't find any information on it. We hunted all over that area of the store. Finally,the Babies R Us guy told us it had been discontinued.

Do you think it's our taste--or lack of it? Our wedding china was canceled not long after our wedding.

At least that can't be discontinued without us knowing about it.

And Max doesn't seem to be going anywhere, either. When the vacuum cleaner turned on today, he freaked out. Remember how Scooby-Doo moved all of his legs and didn't go anywhere when he was frightened? Imagine that going on inside my tummy. Yep. Max is definitely not going anywhere.