30 weeks and shopping

Well as week 30 is here let the shopping begin. I am NOT A FAN OF SHOPPING for myself, but shopping for the baby is fantastic. I have never been as excited to "max out the credit cards" as i have this time.

The once spare bedroom has now been converted into a baby furniture showroom. I almost did not wait for the packaging boxes to be cleared out before taking the photos, now we just need to decorate and add colour....

 Well what can i say about the shopping process.......... HILARIOUSLY CONFUSING FOR THE SHOP ASSISTANTS to start. As a man in a store dedicated to baby furniture and accessories, the shop assistants to begin with did not seem interested in helping me which is fair enough i suppose as they are probably used to mothers making most of the decisions while the husband stand by with a dis-interested look. So what did i do? i called upon my closest female friend to come along, well this certainly acheived the desired effect as the shop assistants become a lot more interested in helping her. The confusing part for the shop assistant was every time a decision had to be made my friend would turn to me and ask "will you both like this colour etc".

Well on our first trip shopping with my female friend we didn't actually purchase anything we were just getting an idea of things. On the second trip shopping it was just Tim and I and in the shop we got a very "SHORT" and "UNHELPFUL" response when we requested prices on some furniture. Basically the sales person assumed that we were there gathering prices for our "female partner / wifes" and simply and bluntly wrote clearly visible ticket prices on a catalogue and then walked off without even asking if we wanted to purchase anything, so we left. We had decided what we wanted to buy the only decision was which of the 2 shops that stocked the item should we purchase from!!! The first shop they were helpful with our female friends presence however were very expensive and the second shop that was a lot more competitively priced but had the rude and somewhat unhelpful shop assistant. When it comes to making purchases it is Tim that is the one with the negotiation skills where as i will just buy things instantly. So we decided to go to the more expensive and slightly more helpful shop and ask if they would match the prices of the cheaper/less helpful shop, after almost 30 minutes the manager and shop assistant were still missing in action (apparently trying to match the other shops prices) we walked out. We chose to ignore our previous experience at the other shop and return to see if we would get a better response. It was a Sunday and the shop was very busy when we arrived, we walked in and Tim went to find a shop assistant (we where there to make a purchase). To our surprise there was a Part Time lady that only works Sunday and was more than happy to help. Of course she assumed Tim was there purchasing the furniture for his "wife" and made the comment that it was so fantastic that a Dad was out doing the shopping. She never asked who i was (i think she thought i was just along for the ride) anyhow i left Tim to the negotiating and selecting of the furniture that we had decided on and met him at the shop counter when they were processing the sale. As the shop assistant read back the order for the furniture i had to "CHIME IN" and tell her that he had got it all wrong. Wrong chest of draws, wrong baby change table, NO we don't want the matching bassinet and YES we do want the book shelf. Well this is where the shop assistants confusion commenced. Who was I?? how did i know what Tim's "wife" wanted?? HAHAHAHAHA. Her only comment was "thank god i was there or he would have got it all wrong". To confuse this absolutely fantastic lady a little more i started to ask lots of questions about other items i had researched and wanted to purchase. All in all this person who works only 5 hours each Sunday in this store really made us feel welcome even though she didn't ask and we didn't tell her the real story of how we are creating our family.

Thanks for following our journey.

XXX Chris and Tim