Early Arrival
We just had an early arrival. No, the baby didn't arrive this week, but all her furniture did. In a wonderful surprise, the crib showed up a week after the rest of the furniture. Now this might not sound like much since she not due to join us until December, but sit back and let me tell you a semi-short story about baby furniture shopping.
First of all, there are some really nice sets out there and when you go to the Baby stores they display them proudly. You walk by the sets and one is nicer than the next. The only problem is that the price tag is truly shocking and then they tell you that it will take 12-14 weeks to arrive. REALLY? 12 weeks to ship baby furniture? Are they waiting for my deposit before they will chop down the tree? Seems outrageous. We were in a store a few Friday's ago and the salesmen was dead serious when he looked at us and said, "You need to come back in by next Monday and make a decision on the furniture." No pressure there, right?
To make matters more difficult, we wanted white furniture, which seemed to limit the options a little. Strike one. We also wanted smaller furniture, since we have a house that is on the smaller side. Strike two. We also wanted a set that was more of a contemporary/modern style. Strike three. I can't explain it, but no matter the item, contemporary styles are more expensive. Why is this? Modern furniture seems to have cleaner lines and be smaller, shouldn't that be cheaper to make than large ornate traditional furniture? Apparently not.
Anyway, after going from baby store to baby store, I decided to try out this Google thing I hear so much about. Online I found even more choices of large, expensive furniture that have extended wait times for delivery. After countless hours online I finally found a crib that looked interesting on Target's site, of all places. The only down-side is that many of the sets on Target's site can only be ordered online, eliminating the ability to see and feel the furniture before buying it. However, Target does have a section where people can write reviews of the furniture, which only caused me to be even more confused in the beginning.
The reviews of the set we liked were very positive, but there was one repeating theme...delivery issues with the crib. Anyone that ordered their crib before June seemed to receive it in a few weeks, but something must have happened in early July. There were a number of posts from people who bought the crib in July and still didn't have it in September. The other posts indicated that the boxes were often damaged in transit, causing some of the parts to be cracked. The combination of having never actually seen or touched the crib along with the fear that it wouldn't arrive in time (or ever), or without damage is just what soon-to-be first time parents want to deal with!
After some careful consideration (and finding a backup crib, just in case) we were ready to pull the trigger and order all of the furniture, including the crib. When we went back to the site to place the order, the crib's status changed from "Available" to "Will ship in 2-4 weeks". UGH…Now what do we do? Even with a 4 week delay, we should still have plenty of time, so out came the credit card and away we went. We were going to wait on the furniture to see about the crib's estimated arrival date, but the furniture was on sale and came with no shipping. Do you know what the shipping charges are on a 85 pound box? Me neither, but it has to be a lot. So, we ordered the whole set. Whew, what a relief to have picked out the furniture and the crib and to have it ordered 3 months before her estimated arrival. Nothing to do now but sit back and wait a few weeks....
Or so we thought. Five days later, I return to the house from work and find four enormous boxes on the driveway. It seems that everything other than the crib had arrived in record time. This was great news except for one small issue...we expected everything to arrive well after the flood repair work had been completed and the house was cleaned. I had to fight the urge to rip open all of the boxes that night and start assembling everything. (I do have to admit to opening one of the boxes to see what the parts look like and to feel the quality...loved both the look and the feel...whew!!!!) So now that the furniture had arrived, I started checking the status of the crib online. It seems that shortly after we ordered it, it changed from shipping in a few weeks to "OUT OF STOCK." I was so glad we got our order in before that happened. Now let's hope they have enough in inventory to fulfill our order.
Another day or so and the house was put back together, all the construction was completed, and now it was time to start assembling some furniture. As each piece came together it became clearer and clearer that we had made the right decision. Assuming the crib ever arrives....(Have you picked up on the not so subtle theme? If not, let me help you out: the underlying theme was that we were worried about the crib)
So a few days pass and there we are, with a partially completed nursery, when Annie receives an email that our crib has shipped. A feeling of SHOCK sweeps over me. The email had a tracking number, so I instantly checked the shipping status. The UPS site showed that the crib shipped but the estimated delivery date wasn’t until October 25th almost 2 months away. Had I selected "UPS Camelback" instead of "UPS Ground"?
Once again I try to put the crib out of my mind, since it still wasn't scheduled to arrive for another month. So guess what? Four days later the crib arrives and the box is in pretty good shape. Of course I immediately start the assembly process and a few hours later we have a mostly assembled crib. (It was pretty late at that point so we decide to put the drawers together the next day.
So long story short (too late, I know), we have an assembled nursery and are loving our selections! Especially since everything arrive WAAAAAY sooner than we thought and it all arrived without any real damage.
So now that we are ahead of schedule on nursery preparation, it can only mean one thing…..Baby Sznitken is definitely going to arrive well after her due date!
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