2005-11-19

I slept in a little bit (about 8:45) and then spent some time on the computer while waiting for Eriko to wake up. She did and soon we were headed to Nadeshiko (about 10:30). She had an 11:15 appointment to participate in a mercury study run by the Washington State Department of Health. At first we were worried because the highway was packed, but as soon as we got past the UW exit, things cleared up. It turns out there was a big UW football game and the 520 bridge was jammed up more than I have ever seen it! Nadeshiko took quite a while, with Eriko in another room with the grad student doing the study. I watched some lectures on the media player before sitting with Eriko for the last 15 or 20 minutes. In exchange for her participation, we received a $40 Target gift card. ;) We headed south on I405 for our big day of shopping – first Ikea, where we were looking for a computer desk but more than that, we enjoyed the many different display rooms they had. It was neat thinking that soon (2/3 years) we’ll have to get a house and will have rooms to setup. Ikea took a while and we got hungry and ate there as well (they have a cafeteria!) Eriko almost became faint but the food reached her just in time. After Ikea, we headed to Babies R’ Us and registered ourselves. That turned out to be a big dissapointment as most of the items there were Chinese-made junk. In addition, it was so overwhelming it was confusing; Eriko didn’t know why she would need have the stuff and the few things she wanted (glass bottles, flat car seat) were nowhere to be found. We left that store very drained; I didn’t do much looking at all. That is the worst kind of shopping – just looking with no real purpose. We headed next to Target and bought some plastic drawers (that will store the baby’s clothes). That was a pretty quick stop, as we knew what we wanted and were too tired to fool around anymore. I had a brief conversation with Aaron while I was waiting for Eriko to look for glass bottles. Back on I-5, I stopped off at Costco to refill the Jetta’s tank and soon we were home. Eriko made dinner and I decided to move the desk from the bedroom to the living room and get rid of the clunky computer desk. This opened up a bunch of space in the bedroom for the crib as well as making the living room the place for me to study (since the bedroom will probably be filled with sleeping mom/baby). I also like that I can do all my tinkering where Eriko spends most of her time. Eriko started knitting and looking at some baby product magazines and got herself worked up about the car seat. I tried to calm her down but wasn’t very effective; I just added fire to her passion by showing her evidence that Washington State requires rear or forward facing car seats rather than the side-facing ones that are in Japan. Eriko stayed awake, furiously knitting, until about 3:30 AM. I went to bed about 1:30, too tired to stay up longer. Shopping! What a pain.