After talking about it for a couple of weeks, Olof and I hit the big toy-slash-baby store in town yesterday to buy an exersaucer for Petra. I’d been looking forward to having a bright and colorful place to stash her when I need a baby-free moment, so you can imagine my dismay when we didn’t find one. Not only didn’t we find one; we didn’t find anyone who had even heard of one. When I was trying to describe it to the baby-stuff expert at the store she just looked increasingly baffled. Finally she asked where we had seen such a thing and when I answered “in the States,” she nodded and gave me a knowing smile. “They have everything there.” Yeah, tell me about it.

So, we didn’t get what we went for, but we did come away with one of those mirrors that you mount on the backseat of the car so that you can see the baby in the rear-view mirror. I had one when Lydia was a baby and it was nice to be able to give a quick glance at her even when she was still in a rear-facing seat. I’m a little nervous sometimes when I’m in the car alone with Petra (she’s rear-facing in the backseat) and it will set my mind at ease to be able to see her face without doing some sort of weird, not-safe-while-driving contortions.

Another thing they have at this toy store that I really want to buy is unfortunately not for sale. It’s a huge stuffed bear that stands on its hind legs and they’ve got it set up in the stuffed-animal section. It’s probably seven feel tall or so, and it even looks a bit real. I mean, it wouldn’t fool you into thinking it was a real bear, but it’s not toy-ish, like a teddy bear. For years I have wanted that bear. I. Want. It. So. Bad. They had a smaller bear–maybe five feet tall–that cost about $300, and it wasn’t nearly so cool or real-looking, so I don’t like to think about how much the good one would cost. I still want it, though. I told Olof that the way I’ll know if he truly loves me is if I open that bear on the morning of my 33rd birthday in a couple of months.

After we were home again, I was talking to Lydia about the bear and she asked what I would do with it if I had it. I told her that I would put it in the living room. She laughed and said, “No, really … where would you put it? It’s not a decoration.” I assured her that I was quite serious, and that I would love to have it standing in a corner in the living room. She took a moment to gauge whether I was telling the truth, decided that I was, then looked at me with big eyes and said incredulously, “Wow … I never noticed that you were, like, a crazy woman.”

Olof and I laughed about it when I told him later. “Yeah,” he said, “you can’t tell at all without the giant stuffed bear toy in the corner.”