Last night, we made the first of many transitions.

We bought the next level of carseat for the baby.

And I’m a little pouty about it. Even though I know the next phases of his life will come, and come quickly, I’ve gotten used to where he’s at. So a little piece of me is sort of mourning right now.

It had to be done, though. He’s probably at the weight limit and definitely at the height limit for his infant carseat. His fat little feet are hanging over the edge. And we want our baby to be safe. Safety is of very high importance to us (as it should be!). So off to the store we went, in search of the perfect Level 2 carseat for our little guy. We ended up standing in the carseat aisle at Target in a semi-heated argument for a few minutes. Until Husband whipped out his Smartphone and began searching the internet for any clues as to what our best option would be. In the end, we went with the option we felt would be best for our baby, and we feel secure that we made the right decision.

It never ceases to amaze me how many products are out there for babies and young children – all proclaiming to be the best, or at least comparable to each other. It’s so confusing! I remember putting together our baby registry while I was pregnant. It took us weeks to finish it. It probably wouldn’t have taken that long if my husband weren’t such a stickler for research. He’s determined to get the best for the best price, and 9 times out of 10, he finds it. I could spend hours scouring the internet for a good deal on something and come up empty handed, but he’ll find it in two minutes or less. The man has a gift.

It was no different when it came to baby gear. And with the mass amount of information out there, it took a lot of time for him to figure out which brands we should select for which products. I’m very glad we’ll never have to do a baby registry again! In fact, I’m thinking husband and I should sit down together and write a comprehensive analysis of our baby-gear search for other new parents, in hopes of lessening the confusion of the baby registry.

Because it IS confusing! We thought our wedding registry was hard? Hah! The wedding registry was a piece of cake! But when you’re shopping for this little person whose life you have complete responsibility for, the game changes. Priorities are different. It’s not about what will look good with your décor – it’s about safety, durability, and usefulness. And those are things you can’t necessarily see when you’re standing in the store, holding two comparable products next to each other.

Especially carseats.

Which is why I am so, so glad husband has a Smartphone! About ten minutes into our conversation on the carseat aisle at Target, I found myself lamenting “Why didn’t we do the research on this before we went shopping?” – it had kind of been a last-minute thing, since we won’t have time to do it for almost another week and our rapidly growing child needs a suitable carseat now. And in a moment of genius, Husband grabbed his phone, went research-crazy, and rescued us from the quagmire we were in.

Thank goodness for that mini-computer-esque phone he carries on his belt! I’ll never use one – I prefer to keep my technology rather simple, thankyouverymuch – but I’m grateful that other people can harness the power of the Smartphone to make my life easier.

Okay, well, I’ll never use one except to play Bejeweled. As long as Husband lets me steal his phone to play Bejeweled from time to time, I’m good.