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Morgan and Aaron came down for Sunday dinner last night, but before nipping into Karen's delightful white-bean chili and cornbread, we went baby-furniture shopping.  This is an industry that has changed substantially since Morgan was new.  All the new baby furniture is designed on the philosophy of "Transformer" toys.  Nothing is what it seems.  Now it's a stroller, now it's a car-seat, not it's a baby carrier, now it's a high chair.  This other thing over here that looks like a play pen can also be persuaded to be a changing table, or a crib, or a stereo.  You might think that this combining things is partly for the sake of economy, but here you would be misguided.  The cost of these items is established by adding up the costs of the various things they can become.  Also, of course, there are variations from the basic PlasCo model to the Disney-themed "get-em-early" design.

 

We went to Babies-R-Us.  This chain store is to babies as Fry's is to electrons.  And devilishly laid out in the best tradition of "The Hidden Persuaders."  Smells of baby powder (they're thinking maybe baby poop wouldn't be all that conducive to the proper purchasing frame of mind?) assail you as soon as you enter and are confronted by a display of infant Halloween costumes - teeny-tinesy cougars, bears, frogs, and, with a nod to Tualatin-resident grandparents, a crawdad.  Cool ... I can be the grandad, the kid can be the crawdad.  Not that I was tempted or anything.

 

Beyond this display, back through the teensy-tinesy jammies, hiking shoes, snow suits and pro-football themed jerseys, in another county maybe, is the furniture section with the above-mentioned Transformer toys for new parents.  Besides their change-ability, baby furniture has also evolved due to product-liability issues.  The accidents that certain design features prevent are spelled out in the product literature on every display; I assume that either all of these things have happened in the older-style furnishings, or in the imaginations of the manufacutrers' legal staff.  In either case, it makes an otherwise jolly shopping occassion kinda gut-wrenching.

 

Two other ways that nursery-room furniture has changed is that much of it is actually very nice, stylish, permanent furniture, and some of it is designed to be used throughout the child's life - a well-made crib can be converted later into a "youth bed" (it's real low to the floor and has railings), then a regular twin bed illustrated in the as-yet-unborn baby's college dorm room.  I didn't see anything about it converting into that geriatric thing that tilts up so you can get out of bed, but maybe even the manufacturer didn't think that was believable.

 

Anyway, we were there to get the two basic things the Kunzes would need as soon as they brought little Smidgen home from the hospital.  They already have the combination stroller/carseat/baby carrier/high-chair, so we were looking to buy the combination playpen/changing table/porta-crib and a cradle.  Wait.  A cradle?  What else does it do?  Nothing, except it has a little music center with ten pre-recorded babies' favorites, and, of course, it's the Eddie Bauer model.  I kid you not.

 

Now, I may sound cynical here, so let me say that these items are really cute and nicely made and very, very safe, and worth every penny.  Especially whe it comes to our Smidgen.  I'm just tellin' you how it is.

 

We also bought a nice little white dresser that also serves (natch) as a changing table.  The little rails around the top can be taken off later for when Smidgen goes to college.  The product literature doesn't mention what Smidgen's little sister is supposed to do for baby furniture, if Smidgen keeps it all the way through college.  I'm guessing their preference is you should buy some more.

 

Alarms and Diversions

 

About 11:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, all the chili dishes being in the dishwasher, the Rileys and Kunzes tucked safely into their little beds, the phone at the Riley bivouac rang.  It was a nice lady somewhere in Amarillo calling us to say that the burglar alarm in our house in Colorado Springs was going off, and that the police had been notified.  Maybe someone had broken in and was about to steal our valuable ... uh ... wallboard?  Maybe we should get home and look around?

 

I know several families who have installed burglar alarms in their houses, every one of them AFTER a robbery or attempted robbery.  When this happened to Morgan and Aaron, we decided to buck the trend and install ours before the fact.

 

Instead of driving back to Colorado Springs, we called Kevin McCullough, our designated house-watcher, to remind him that it was 12:30 Mountain Time, the perfect time and really a great opportunity to drive over to our house to see if it was being burgled or invaded by bears or whatever, and he said sure, that sounds like fun.

 

While wating for a call from either the police, Kevin, or the ADT security people, it occured to us that if Kevin arrived before the police did, they might well think HE was the burglar, so we called ADT central and asked them to tell the police that Kevin was our tag-team representative, and please don't arrest or shoot him.

 

Kevin, stawart trooper that he is, had in fact arrived first.  It occurred to HIM as he was opening the garage door that he was unarmed, and maybe the burglar and/or bear was not.  I understand he entered the house bearing my carpenter's square as a weapon.

 

When the police arrived, they had been informed of Kevin's role, so instead of shooting him, they accompanied him in looking through the house and inspecting the yard round-about.  Nothing.   Oh, well, I guess false alarms are the price you pay to have a security system in your house.  Or, in this case, the price Kevin pays.

 

Thank you, Kevin.  We've been talking up the name "Lliam Kunze."  Really.

 

Also thanks Cheryl.  Sorry for the disturbance.

 

Love you guys - everyone! - and that's all for now from lovely (rainy) Tualatin.