I’m only 26 years old. My hair is falling out, my joints crack and I think I’m even starting to develop a twitch. How could this have happened so early? I’ll tell you how: baby. Now before you jump to thinking that I’m insensitive and am going to be a horrible father, let me explain. I’m not talking about our baby, but about the idea of a baby and the stressful preparations we’re all tricked into making. Specifically, the nursery.

The baby industry is making a KILLING off first-time parents, like Jules and myself. Every baby website comes equipped with a list of “Gotta Have’s” for the little one, and each list seems to be bigger than the last. But these baby sites aren’t stupid. They know that I don’t need to buy a $100+ changing table. And honestly, I know that too. But they somehow turn these luxury items into necessities that, if I don’t buy, I’ll need to have my back fused from the constant bending over. What they don’t tell you is you’re more likely to need back surgery from putting the thing together than you are not having a changing table at all. Billions of people from the beginning of time lived their lives without a changing table, but that means nothing to me. I NEED TO HAVE ONE!

So I buy one. And of course the box its in isn’t shaped like a changing table. I wish that once, just once, I would order a crib, chair or anything else and it would arrive in a box shaped like the item supposedly inside. But instead I have to spend an hour figuring out how to turn a square box into a stroller.

*Side Note* What’s up with UPS? I swear our UPS delivery guy has a remote that sets off our doorbell after he’s reached a safe distance. No matter how quickly we try to get to the door when the doorbell rings, he’s nowhere to be seen. He just leaves the box on the front door and I have to haul whatever it is around back to the entrance of our apartment by myself. It also doesn’t help when Amazon’s package tracking site says the box weighs 21 pounds when it actually weighs 90.

So I get the package into the house and start unboxing everything. Boards; dowels; tiny bags full of tiny screws that, when dropped, disappear into the carpet until 30 minutes later when they jab into your foot. We take a quick glance over the printouts that came with the instructions and notice a few typos (“Wath is your age” for example). That doesn’t really boost my confidence in the instruction packet. I’ve discovered that, for every step listed in the directions that come with an item, I have a 10% chance of stabbing my finger with a screwdriver or smashing my toe or hurting myself in some way. So any item whose assembly requires 10 or more steps, it’s pretty much a sure thing that I’m going to hurt myself. Our changing table? 24 steps. That’s a 240% chance of me experiencing pain during the construction of this table. That meant I was definitely going to be hurt twice, and there was a 40% chance of having a 3rd incident. Bring it on.

So it took Jules and I about 2 hours, but we finally got the changing table put together and, not to brag, but it’s looking good and is very sturdy. That was the last item for the nursery and now everything is ready. We cleaned the car and put the car seat in. After weeks of boxes being delivered to our door, the only delivery left is the baby. We’re so anxious and excited to see our little girl and welcome her to our family.