Cribbage!

The Wonder Twins officially have safe places to lay their little heads once they're born. After lots of hemming and hawing, Geof and I have finally purchased two matching cribs, which convert from a crib to a toddler bed, day bed and ultimately a full-sized adult bed. We chose white, because we felt like it would "pop" nicely against the chocolate and pink paint colors we plan to brush below and above the white chair rail that Geof will eventually have time to install in the nursery.

I never thought the crib-buying process would be so involved. I figured you just went to Babies R' Us, found something attractive in a reasonable price range and brought it home that day. Yeah, not so much.

My eyes were opened widely to the intensive and, at times, painstaking process of selecting a crib when I started reading the book, "Baby Bargains." It's a must-have manuel for parents-to-be. It not only rates crib manufacturers on an A-F academic scale for safety and value, but it also gives excellent advice. For instance, I had no idea most stores don't have cribs in stock. You typically have to order them, and if there are none in the store's warehouse, you have to wait for them to be shipped from the manufacturing facility in China. Yikes! That could mean a 15-20 week wait! Being that I was 20 weeks pregnant at the time, I knew my nerves could not handle being sans cribs when the babies were born. So, Geof and I got started on the great crib hunt immediately!

Based on the book, we knew we wanted sturdy cribs made of hardwood (no particle board), adjustable mattress heights, spring support systems beneath the mattress and the ability to convert to toddler beds. Finding ones in white that met those criteria for under $250 each was not easy. But, we looked and looked online, and finally found one we liked.

I checked out the Graco model in person on a Monday and liked it. When Geof came back to the store with me two days later, the floor model was no where to be found. I asked a customer service representative for help locating it, and he politely told me it had been discontinued. Awesome. That meant we had to start over.

We searched for hours online again and found other model we liked, but unfortunately, it was listed as "out of stock" on the store's Web site. The site did, however, have a place where we could enter our e-mail addresses and be notified when the product was back in stock. Much to our surprise, we got an e-mail from the store less than a week later. Figuring that was some kind of sign, we immediately busted out the credit card and purchased two! You can see them here - http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=6005135.

They're being delivered to the Wal-Mart in Knightdale next week (great way to void shipping costs!), and we're really looking forward to picking them up and putting them together. OK, let's be honest. Geof will be putting them together. :) Either way, though, it will give us a much better idea as to how much space we're going to have left in the nursery for a changing table, comfy chair and other baby things that we probably don't even know we need yet. Plus, nesting is fun!