Adoptivus: Baby Gap

September 16, 2008. Our eyes and hands and hearts were finally, truly filled with our first memories of Little Bug.

After meeting our son and having our world rocked, we felt the need to be low key and process what had just happened. We were so emotionally drained.

So clearly the best idea was to go to a super mall and shop for unidentified items.

Shopping in major malls in a foreign country for nothing in particular....totally calming. (?)

The mall we went to was multiple stories and although our house was jammed packed with everything we could possibly need for a child, our new parenthood auras were screaming to buy our kid something.

We made our way to the baby floor and decided an outfit would be a good choice. Unfortunately, this floor wasn't exactly like the baby clothing sections I was expecting. Baby Armani and other designers flowed through the store, in some cases using displays so swanky I was afraid to even walk up to them to browse the items. I ended up gravitating to Baby Gap, for surely I could find a reasonably priced polo that my child could wear somewhere other than to Fashion Week.

Apparently polos are not popular in Korea....not even in Baby Gap.

Instead I found a $120 canvas coat with some nautical theme, which was one of the least expensive items. My mind was a fog between having JUST MET MY SON and being assaulted by sticker shock from the other baby clothes selections (and possibly not having ate anything for almost 24 hours, as my time line reconstruction is now suggesting), so I held that coat for close to 10 minutes wandering around the small rack trying to talk myself in or out of buying it.

In: My baby deserves it. I deserve to buy it for my baby. It's a coat...babies need coats.
Out: It's $120 for a fall coat. It's not my style. It's $120 for a fall coat.

The best testament to how much meeting Little Bug rocked us, Appa didn't even attempt to talk some fiscal sense into me.

Finally reason won out and the coat was placed back on the rack. We continued to wander around the baby floor browsing bottles and cups and all sorts of other items we didn't actually need.

Instead, in the basement, we found a Build-A-Bear, book store, and music store where we could seal our new roles are parents by buying our kid random stuff without breaking the bank.

Ahh, the beginning of a beautiful tradition.