Baby Expo or Baby Expos'e?

Baby Expo or Baby Expos'e?

One tiger's perspective of the Baby expo phenomenon. 

So the other weekend I went to a baby and parenting expo - partially to work a stall and partially to suss out the scene. And another partially to try and score free stuff - whoo!

I've been to job conventions, anime contentions, pop culture conventions, music conventions... and they've mostly been push and shove - you fall down and you're on your own buddy, I've gotta get first in line and get those free pens!

Ain't no-one got space-time fo' dat

I was even expecting a parental pissing contest as seen below. 

This gif is life itself

Strangely, it was nothing like that, everyone was really nice and respectful, babies looked at me and didn't scream or puke, vendors were friendly and not in your face... it was like visiting Mars.





So what was I doing there? Promoting maternity clothing including bras and other goodies.
I did a bit of research before I went because I had a feeling that people would ask me preggo questions and I wanted to instil upon them a faint sense of confidence in my sales person skills.

What I normally get when hocking stuff at people

What I got this time round

I don't know what it is about me but people feel that they can really open up to me and tell me things. I was impressed that quite a few had the metaphorical balls to tell me they had no idea what they were doing when it came to stocking up on essential over the shoulder boulder holders.

I heard a lot of sensitive information about bodily fluids and associated dramas, of pain, and fluff and of questions about sizing and how people coped with catching bowls of their own lactatin' awesomeness.

One common factor was bemoaning ordinary hosiery and underwear stores for lack of cup sizes, variety of styles or patterns and comfort.

Which, when you think about it is pretty frustrating. As a whole, people are getting larger however many stores don't accommodate for this. It frustrates me when you try to buy clothes and there are millions of size 8's left, and nothing over a size 12 before it jumps up to size 24 without warning.

So clearly, everyone is buying this section in the middle yet the stores aren't ordering enough to go around. As well as that, you can't trust women's sizing because it makes less sense than Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey mashed together.

The people who make clothes are usually idiots and just add longer sleeves or a shapeless sack to 'plus size' clothes because they're still working off the 'normal' mini-sizes. I once brought a bra that had an excellent fit on the cups, the straps were decent and it looked beautiful but the side band came up to the top of my armpits and I was like WTF?

And also AAAARGH THE PAIN OH WHY OH MAN

The only way I could truly be comfortable in that thing was to leave my arms on top of my head. Probably not too bad as it was a sports bra but still. I wondered what people thought people my size actually looked like and why they thought I needed an underwire lobotomy via my collar bone when working out.

What I didn't think would be that having larger sizes for pregnant women would ever be an issue. I mean, you get pregnant, you're expected to at least go up another size or so, generally speaking. So why did I keep hearing that normal stores barely go above a D/E cup? It's ridiculous!

McGuyvering your home against babies

There's also a lot of neat merchandise available, and from what my inexperienced eyes can see infant technology has just took off in leaps, bounds and space traveller strides. So, that's good to know. Hopefully by the time we pop one out I won't even have to lift a finger. 

Pictured: ... me if I was a hilarious dude

Unfortunately I didn't get much of  chance to look around or learn anything new but I did get a crapola of reading material and amongst other free items an entire tin of toddler protein shake?

Hopefully the big questions will be answered in my reading homework.