A Warm Bottle and a Clean Diaper

The child hasn’t even been arrived yet and she has everything a baby girl could possibly want. Actually, don’t all newborns just want to be fed, warm, and poop-and-gas free? My friends Celeste and Ajit are having their first baby in a matter or months—a girl, Madeline. The nursery in their house is brimming with baby books, toys, stuffed animals, and clothes…tons of clothes. The entire inventory, acquired from the generosity of friends and friends of friends, freed from attics and boxes marked “Kids’ Clothes”, will enjoy a second life in the Monnette De Silva household. Celeste won’t have to buy clothes for Madeline until she’s eight.

Tomorrow is Madeline’s shower and I am 100 percent stumped as to what I am getting her. If I’m having this much trouble thinking of a gift for her in her pre-natal state, what’s it going to be like for the next twenty-or-so years of gift-giving? Oy gevalt, this Madeline is hard to shop for!

I should have taken that dog-eared issue of Parenting Magazine home with me from the gym. I know next-to-nothing about the latest in baby-gear innovation. Diaper Genie? That is so 2002.

If I had Sleeping Beauty fairy powers, I’d give Madeline the gift of being a sound sleeper. A new parent’s lament often involves sleep deprivation and colicky babies. May your child find bliss in a full night’s sleep! Now that would be something!

It’s Saturday afternoon, an hour before the shower. I’m at Babies “R” Us.

“Excuse me, can you show me where the Diaper Genie 3000 is located?”