Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

I’m heading up north again tomorrow (yes, AGAIN!) for a visit with family, but mainly to attend the baby shower of one of my best friends. I’m so excited to be attending and I’m so mad at myself that I’m going to be seeing her pregnant for the first time and she’s due next month! I’m a BAD friend, I really am.

Hey, Beth - if you’re reading this before Saturday, you might want to stop RIGHT NOW - spoiler ahead!

Anyway, of course, with a baby shower coming up, I had to pick out a gift (and yes, I got her some batteries, don’t worry!) and ran into the veteran parent quandry - do I buy her what she registered for or do I buy her what I think she really needs?

I know that it’s so annoying as a first-time mom to have all of the veterans telling you that you need this and you need that - when I was pregnant for the first time I wished everyone would just SHUT UP and let me do my own thing! As a mom, though, I just want her to be able to avoid all of the learning that I had to do - I want to tie up all the lessons I learned and mistakes I made and put them in a pretty package and save her all of the trauma that new moms have to go through.

What did I do? Well, first I went and bought a gazillion baby supplies off of her registry - seriously, a gazillion, and then some batteries. Then I talked to her and found out that no one had bought the jogging stroller that she had registered for at a different store. This girl walks, and walks, and walks, and has 2 huge dogs - she NEEDS a jogging stroller! This is where my veteran mom part of me just overrode all “shut up and let her learn” voices in my head and took over. I returned all of the baby supplies and focused on the jogging stroller.

See, I’m the queen of stroller research - I could have written a book on it when I was pregnant with both of my kids, first on single strollers then on double. I checked out the one she registered for and realized that it was the same price as the one that I ADORE and recommend to everyone on earth. (the InStep Safari) I’ve used this same stroller (but in a more boring blue color - why does all the cool stuff come out when you’re done buying baby stuff for yourself?) for almost 3 years now and just know that my friend will love it as much. So the question was, do I get her the one she registered for or get her the one that she NEEDS?

I got her the one she needs - yup, I’m the annoying veteran. I do remember her commenting on mine once when my daughter was a baby and we’ve discussed strollers several times, so I’m fairly certain the only reason she registered for the one she did is because it’s the only one remotely close to what she wanted at that store. I knew she’d want this one - it has a lockable front wheel, but can swivel if you want it to (LOVE this) and it is compatible with almost every car seat carrier there is - who wouldn’t love it? The one she registered for doesn’t do either of those, by the way. (Yes, I know there are different needs for serious, hard core runners, but for jogging and walking on all surfaces, this stroller is perfect.)

We’ll find out on Saturday if she likes it, I guess! The only thing I was worried about is if someone bought the one off the registry, so I called her and left a message telling her to go online and take it off the registry, but I couldn’t tell her why. I. am. a. dork.

Do you do the same thing? Do you prescribe to the Rolling Stones’ way of thinking when it comes to new moms - you know, “You can’t always get what you want, you get what you need”? Or am I just annoying? Sigh.

Note: I included the picture and link here to the stroller I bought because I LOVE it. No affiliation with InStep or JustStrollers, although if they’d like to sponsor a giveaway here I’d be MORE than willing to host one! hint, hint