Definitely not communist. . .

The title may surprise you unless you know/remember that I majored in and did grad work in Russian/Soviet history (yes so did Bard, awww isn't that cute?!) So I have a lot of analogies regarding communism that constantly run through my head. And last Friday I had a baby experience that made me think of communist Russia, so here it is!

My friend Amy and I went to Babies R Us with Asher and Evelyn. She wanted some pjs for Ash and I wanted some toys for Evelyn, I feel bad since she doesn't really have any! Neither one of us really needed anything, shh, don't tell our husbands! Anyway, since Evy decided to be a stinker and start teething early, I thought I would pick her up a teething ring or two. I went to the toy section to look for one. By the way if you've never been inside a Babies R Us they are roughly the size of Vermont and have everything you didn't know you needed until you found it existed. So I was pretty surprised when I couldn't really find teethers. I was wandering back through clothes and decided to look by the bath toy aisle and see if they had anything there. Well, I realized I had been looking in the toy section when I should have been looking in the teething section because they have two whole aisles of teething toys! Yes, on either side of you for a good ten feet and from floor to about 6 feet up, they crammed teething toys. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! They had wooden teethers, clothe, plastic, ones that vibrate, light up, make noise, and stick to tables. They had teethers that "stimulated the auditory senses" "encouraged visual learning" "developed tactile senses" and probably one that taught how to fill out college applications. Seriously, it was insane. Amy and I just stood there laughing. It must have taken us ten minutes to pick out two teethers-I just went with ones that she said Asher liked. Only of course I bought the pink version, let's be real here.

So why communist Russia you ask? In the Soviet Union shopping was made simple-either they didn't have it or they only had one kind. One kind of TV, one kind of cereal, one kind of ball, you get the picture. Now, I can see how that could get a bit annoying, especially because their items were poorly made and often broke! But really, I don't know that we need to go so far the other way! Try an experiment, go to babiesrus.com and type in teethers-there are three pages of items! Let me tell you, BabiesRUs is capitalism on steroids.

And you may wonder, after all that, what is Evelyn's favorite teether? It's a toss up between her carseat strap and her bib. Sheesh!

; )