Making Progress In Babyland

We had another non-stress test on Saturday (as we will on all Saturdays until Baby 2K7 is a separate human being), and this time it went much better. M formulated a theory that the baby is more active when people are talking and things are happening, so we made a point to talk during the test, rather than kick back in the comfy chairs and chill. It worked very well. Baby 2K7 was a movin' and jivin' baby, the doctors got a read on the active heartbeat (and were pleased with the results), and a sonogram was averted! Yay Baby 2K7!

Since we had time before M had to go into work to meet with a Baltimore Sun columnist, we went to Target to look at car seats. Now, I'm not sure if any of you heard about the Consumer Reports thing, so allow me to summarize:

A few months ago, Consumer Reports did their own testing of infant car seats, using speeds slightly faster than the government does (38 MPH vs. 35 MPH), and found that all but two do very poorly at the higher speeds. Well, as it turns out, someone screwed up, and the speeds weren't a few MPH higher, they were double. All these seats (except two) were failing at 70 MPH. So Consumer Reports retracted the survey, and the infant seat ratings were pulled from their website.

Luckily, I had printed out the 70 MPH ratings before they got pulled from the site, so I knew that the infant seat we found at Target was one of the two that had actually passed the 70 MPH test. So we got it. Check off car seat from the list of things to get!

We also settled on what crib to buy. It's a bit expensive, but it converts to a toddler bed and to a full bed (up to a certain weight of kid), so it should last a while. And it was the most sturdy of the ones that didn't cost an insane amount, and the sides go down easily, which will be good when Baby 2K7's short momma goes to retrieve baby from or place baby into the crib.

We still have to actually buy it, but at least we know what we're gonna buy now.

We went to another baby class last night. This time it was Birth Basics 101. Not surprisingly, it was like the Preparing For Birth class we took a few weeks ago, only with no breathing exercises and briefer discussions of the details. Still, it was good to reinforce the information.