non-gender neutral

When I was pregnant with Clara I would often ramble on and on about how I didn't want to dress her only in pink, and I didn't want to surround her with princess garbage or flowers/butterflies/glitter stuff if I didn't have to.  Tommy and I both wanted to make more gender neutral purchases so that the gear could be used for future bambinos.

We did pretty good - most of our actual gear is gender neutral.  It's surprising how NON-gender neutral baby products can be.  Dressing Clara in more neutral stuff didn't happen.  At. All.  She isn't our "dress up doll" - but she is so dang adorable in pinks and purples and every color in between.  I have no prob dressing her like a little lady.

The ONE item that Tommy picked out which shocked me was a girly infant car seat.  We are talking hot pink piping, and black and white floral graphics throughout.  I really wanted a more neutral seat.  But he thought it was "cute" for a little girl - and he said something along the lines that she deserves to have a couple pretty girly things...which I, in turn, thought was cute.  So we got the girly car seat.

Except now we are having a boy.  And you THINK you could just go pick out a new car seat cover easy as pie.  Oh no.  Not so.  Gracco does make them...but there are so many different car seat models that purchasing covers is not an easy process.  You have to physically call them...talk to a customer service representative...and perhaps they can help find a different cover.

So I made the call to Gracco the other day...surfed their site and picked out a few choices that I liked.  Unfortunately...none of those patterns were available.  Ha.  Go figure.  I ended up getting a design that will work...and it cost around $60 with shipping.  (Cheaper than the cutesy ones available on Etsy...though much less cutesy...and yet I don't know if I am such a strong fan of cutesy anyway.)

It's hilarious that the ONE NON-gender neutral item we bought we had to shell out some serious cash to convert.  We didn't think ahead on this one.  Get a neutral car seat.