We went shopping for baby stuff on the weekend. We came home with a couch. This is not really as bad as it seems. We are not in denial. Well I maybe a little, that I have to get my head around all this stuff like car seats and prams and wheel sizes and measurements. I asked around a few months ago and realised that this was totally overwhelming for me. I came home from a baby expo and told Todd that I was dreading choosing the pram.

Now I knew he had looked up a few things but I was still totally surprised when we entered the baby shop and Todd quickly glanced over the racks of prams.

‘Nope, nothing here.’ He said turning to leave. What?

‘What do you mean, you’ve hardly looked.’

‘No these aren’t the right ones.’

There was like 50 lined up proudly waiting to be taken for a testdrive.

‘Don’t you need to look at them?’

‘Nah.’

I was perplexed but wandered aimlessly towards the car seat capsules. Same thing happened here.

‘Ok I’m done, are you done?’ He asks cheerfully, ready to leave.

‘Ok. Hold on, what’s going on? Do you not want to get a pram? Are you in baby denial?’

Here I will backtrack a few hours, so you can understand my question. The first shop we walked into was a furniture store. It hit Todd almost instantly. We are buying a couch together. It freaked him out a little but I didn’t know this at the time as all he said was something along the lines of ‘Wow, we are couch shopping.’ I easily brushed this aside. After all I was lugging my six month pregnant belly around and we were picking out the couch to go into our house which we had owned and lived together in for over a year. A couch was not a big commitment… or so I thought. He loosened up and we had fun lolling about on all the different styles and finally decided to purchase practically the same beige couch that we already had. We had agreed on what would be an acceptable discount and were about to make the deal when I piped up,

‘Hold on, lets just go look at the other store. Just in case there is something totally different and we fall in love with it.’

Now, this is not usually how it goes. I am usually the bull at the gate – hang the expense, I want that one. Todd is usually the deliberator, taking his time on decisions. I normally like the beige couch with far too many throw cushions, after all I picked the original that we were duplicating. Todd normally likes things that are a little off the wall and unique. For some reason we switched, he was ready to pull out the card and I suggested looking for something different.

I am very pleased to say we found it. Not your conventional couch but that’s the beauty of it. It suits us as a couple. I pictured our babies on it and our children snuggled between us. I said this to Todd and we were sold. I was pretty stoked that I had gone against my usual grain and found something totally different, but that was us. Todd was… well… he was all of a sudden quiet. Ordering and paying at the register he was kind of distracted. I thought maybe there wasn’t enough money in that particular account.

‘You ok?’ I asked in the car.

‘Yeah,’ he reassured. ‘We just bought a couch together.’

‘Umm. We kind of have something else together, coming pretty soon. I wouldn’t really think a couch is a big deal?’

Then I remembered. The great couch incident of years ago. As I recall the story goes… Boy meets girl and young relationship ensues. They decide to buy a couch together. Girl picks couch, boy hates couch but buys it anyway to make girl happy. Boy and girl break up. First love devastation follows, and boy is left with ugly couch as a reminder for years to come. Ok, so that is Todd’s story but many of us have similar. Baggage.

I couldn’t help but laugh relieved when I figured it out. ‘You have couch baggage!’

Todd laughed too when he admitted I was right.

‘It’s ok babe, it really is just a couch.’ I reassured.

Back to the baby store. So here I was, now well aware of the couch baggage, and here Todd was telling me he doesn’t want a pram – hence my question – ‘Are you in baby denial?’

‘Of course not.’ He laughs. ‘I’ve just done my research these are the cheap shitty brands, they’ll irritate you as soon as you get them home.’

Ah… ok… I am relieved again – and impressed. As we leave the store I can’t help but look to him with a gooing smile on my face. It would seem the house, the car, the baby – no problem. The couch – another subject.

I’ve realised I can safely leave the rest of the ‘technical’ shopping in his hands and just in case, he can leave any future couch shopping to me. J