Feels Like Rocket Science

This is Gwennyth. She’s a Newborn.

Newborns are the hottest accessory for fashion- forward mamas, doncha know? Don't believe me? Walk into your local Target- any Target and look around (or maybe this is just in Tucson). You can’t swing a fully loaded diaper bag without hitting a woman sporting one. They come in all shapes and sizes, although you don’t really get to choose your Newborn the way you get to decide on nursery themes.

(FYI-I spent eight and a half months and 10 hours waiting to get my latest Newborn, so if you want one of your own, prepare to be wait listed.)

A variety of accessories are available for Newborns, and sorting through them all trying to decide which ones you want can be mind numbing. It's like brain freeze, but worse. Baby Brain Freeze is triggered as soon as you enter into the baby aisle at the retail store of your choice in search of all those things necessary to keep your Newborn alive and thriving. Baby Brain Freeze happens regardless of what you’re shopping for and even if this is not your first Newborn- it’s totally indiscriminate.

For example, let’s say your Newborn needs bottles. So you head to your favorite shopping haven and steer the cart into the bottle aisle. Several shelves of varied bottles refract the overhead fluorescent lights off of their surface. You step forward to take a closer look and then realize how many types of bottles and nipples there are to choose from. At first you think, woohoo! Choices! You begin scanning the shelves, looking at how each type is different from one another and yet not.

Attracted by the colorful butterflies decorating one BPA free bottle, you pick up the box, flip to the back and begin reading about its benefits. Then back it goes so you can compare it to another brand. This one isn't as colorful but it promises to reduce gassiness and raise your Newborns IQ by 100 points. Sounds good, you think, but your baby isn't so far the really gassy sort. The IQ boost sounds good, though, but you keep looking. It isn't long before you're eyes go from scanning the boxes to frantically darting between them. Baby Brain Freeze begins to really set in. A glance at your watch tells you that you've been standing there for nearly a half hour and you still haven't chosen a bottle. Your Newborn whimpers from her car seat, serving only to increase your panic. Eventually you find yourself pumping your fist and railing at the gods about all the godforsaken choices.

“I JUST WANTED TO BUY A BOTTLE!” You wail.

Your attention returns to the pantheon of baby bottles.

Which one should you pick? Vented, anti-colic, natural breast shaped nipple, angled, wide mouth... 5 oz, 10 oz...  Before long you're glassy eyed and slack jawed, completely checked out of this world until the drool hits your shoe. The sheer weight of making a decision is suddenly paralyzing. NO decision is a little decision when you have a Newborn. Get the wrong bottle, and you're baby may spit up more, become more colicky, gassy, lose IQ points or (if you're breast feeding), reject your very own nipples in favor of the clear, BPA free silicone ones and never drink from your au natural tap ever again.

Your Newborn, the reason for your Baby Brain Freeze, stirs again in her car seat. Her face is getting all pinchy, and the rosy color spreading across it is like a theater curtain, alerting you that the Newborn is getting restless because you’re TAKING TOO LONG! It’s not rocket science, but it sure feels like it.

When consciousness returns, you realize you're disgusted with being brain locked and begin grabbing one of each box off the shelf and tossing them in the cart. The strategy evolves from buying the best to hoping for the best and burn shopping cart rubber out of the baby section. But at the checkout you realize you also need more formula, so back you go. And even though you've been using formula for weeks, Baby Brain Freeze starts up. ALL. OVER. AGAIN.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

If you think you’re immune to Baby Brain Freeze because you’re a veteran baby maker, you’re in for a rude awakening. Unlike most other pregnancy symptoms, Baby Brain Freeze will creep up on you with every child you welcome into the world. Every. Single. One. Products evolve at an astonishing rate these days so there's a very good chance that all the things you used for the baby you had just two years ago have been replaced with those touting new and improved features!

I like to think that these days, even a rocket scientist would find themselves rocking back and forth in the baby goods section, wondering why universities don't offer PhD programs in Shopping for Baby.