The Shopaholic has a Baby

It's official. I've gone nuts.

So my family/ethnic group has this superstition about not bringing anything into the house for the baby before the baby is born. Not unusual, right? Except I'm having a really hard time with it. I've never had a kid before, and the last thing I want is to have it home for a few days and realize at 3am that there's stuff this kid needs that I DON'T HAVE. I'm a planner. There should be notebooks and checklists at work here. I should be comparison shopping, finding deals, laying in enough supplies for quintuplets. But I'm not supposed to buy anything yet. Irresistible force meets immovable object.

Enter the Type-A Queen of Rationalization.

Rationalization #1. Ordering Things is Not Buying Things. Nursery furniture has to be ordered 12 weeks in advance to ensure it can arrive anywhere near around the time that the kid arrives. So it's been ordered, and the good people at the store will hold it until the kid arrives. I will call them from the hospital, my mother or mother-in-law will let them in, they will set it up, and I will come home with the child to a set-up room. Amen. Not much of a rationalization there - nothing is actually being brought home until the kid is.

Rationalization #2 - Planning Is Not Purchasing. I can make all the checklists and spreadsheets I want. I can register, so long as I don't let anyone buy anything on the registry yet. I can research products, brands and such all I like. I can visit Consumer Reports on-line as often as I want. And I can certainly own and cart around that great bible of expectant mothers everywhere - Baby Bargains - and take notes in it until the pages fall apart.

Rationalization #3 - Used Things/Borrowed Things Have Not Been "Purchased For the Baby." So the hand-me-downs from my cousin don't count. The things I've borrowed from local friends don't count. And the stuff I've bought on eBay obsessively for the last week doesn't count. None of this was *originally* purchased for my child, so it doesn't count. Right? Right?

Rationalization #4 - If I Have to Have It BEFORE the Kid Comes Home, I Can Buy It Now. I had to buy a carseat. They won't let me bring the kid home without it. I probably didn't have to have it 3 months in advance, but do I really want to be at Babies R Us when I'm 9 months pregnant? Of course not.

Rationalization #5 - My Office is Not My Home. If I buy stuff for the kid, I can keep it in my office until the kid arrives without running afoul of the rule. See also Rationalization #5A - My In-Laws' House is Not My Home.

Rationalization #6 (this is the big one) - The Closet in The-Bedroom-That-Will-Be-The-Nursery is Not Actually Part of My House. Take the big leap of faith with me here. I have officially declared this particular closet to be its own sovereign nation, with its own ruler, parliament, and plat of subdivision. Anything in this closet, therefore, is not in my home. After the baby is born, I will use my omnipotent powers to immediately annex the closet, anything that's in it, and its tax base, back into my home.

In other words, superstition be damned. I'm not losing any more sleep over not being prepared for this child! But I'm not going to spit into the wind either. May the gods of fate not strike me down for being obsessive and pregnant.