Maya appears from another aisle with a basket already half-full. "Infant Tylenol. Gas drops. Saline spray. Rectal thermometer?—"
"Why rectal?" I interrupt, horrified.
"Most accurate for babies this young. Trust me, you'll get used to it." She tosses it in. "Also, booger sucker."
"A what?"
"You'll thank me later."
I'm pushing the cart, and it's already overflowing. We're not even close to done. Diane has commandeered the clothing section and is talking fast, about onesies and sleepers and how babies pee on everything, and I'm just nodding because that's all I have left in me. The cart fills with items: burp cloths, swaddle blankets, pacifiers, a baby monitor, a nightlight, something called a “white noise machine,” bottle brushes, a drying rack, and dish soap that's apparently different from regular dish soap because it's "baby safe."
"Does she really need all this?" I finally ask, somewhere in an aisle dedicated to nursery organization.
Emma stops and looks at me. "Yes.Allof it. You haveliterallynothing, Tyler. She showed up with a diaper bag that had maybe six diapers in it and some formula. That's not enough to survive a day."
"I didn't know there was so much... stuff." I gesture at the overflowing cart.
"Babies require a lot of stuff." Diane pats my arm. "But once you have it, you're set for a while. This is the hard part."
Checkout takes a small eternity. The total climbs higher and higher as the cashier rings everything up, the total more than I've spent in one go in a while. I don't care. Hockey pays well, even if half my team hates me.
Loading the SUV takes fifteen minutes. The third row's folded down, and the back is packed solid by the time we're done.
"Buy Buy Baby next," Emma announces, climbing into the driver's seat. "Furniture."
"More?"
"Tyler, where exactly is your daughter supposed to sleep? On your floor?"
Right. Obviously.
Buy Buy Baby is even more overwhelming. The furniture section alone is the size of my house. Cribs everywhere, dozens of them, all looking identical to me, but apparently with crucial differences.
Emma decides on a white crib that converts to a toddler bed later. Diane finds a matching changing table with drawers underneath, because “storage is important,” apparently. Maya goes through the gliders the way someone tests mattresses, sitting in each one for thirty seconds, gliding it with her foot, and moving on. She lands on a gray one, plants herself in it, and points.
"This one. I've rocked a lot of babies in my career. That's the one you want."
I don't argue.
We end up at checkout with a crib, changing table, glider, and a mattress specifically designed for babies because regular mattresses are "too soft and dangerous." Same-day delivery costs extra. I don't care.
"One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven dollars, sixty-two cents," the sales associate says cheerfully.
I blink at the number, hand over my card, and don't let myself think about it. This is what being a parent costs. I tell myself it's fine—all of it is fine—and I almost mean it. What I don't say out loud is that it’s not the number that's making my chest feel strange. It's the word I just thought without flinching.Parent. I used it about myself, and it didn't feel wrong.
I don't know when that happened.
We get back to the house around three. Nora's on the couch with Harper, who's awake but calm, just looking around with those unfocused blue eyes babies have.
"How'd it go?" she asks, glancing at the absolutely absurd amount of stuff we're carrying in.
"We bought out two stores," Maya says, setting down a stack of boxes. "And Tyler's wallet is significantly lighter."
"But we got everything." Emma's already organizing, sorting bags by category.
The delivery truck pulls up twenty minutes later, and two guys start hauling boxes in. The crib's in pieces, so is the changing table and the glider. They offer to assemble, but Emma waves them off.
"We've got this. Thanks."