Not all cribs are made the same

Dear Baby,
By the time you read this, you probably won't remember that you once had a crib. Unlike a favorite toy or book, there's not much reason to have a crib in the house once you've outgrown it.
So, we'd just like to tell you that at one point your mom and dad spent many, many hours studying The Crib Issue with great sincerity, full attention and significant cluelessness.
You must understand: we needed just. the. right. crib. This was the first significant gift we were going to buy for you and nothing but the best (within reason), most safe (in our price range) and highest recommended (available in our area) crib would do for our little one.
Now, you may be under the impression that all cribs are basically the same - wood slats, a floor, a mattress. If only it were so simple.
The Great Crib Hunt of 2009 began in April, when the air was crisp and the ground was frozen.
At our first store, we were assured by the salesman that a great majority of cribs are baby ambushes - wooden Venus fly traps waiting to suffocate you, strangle you, mangle you, dangle you, break your legs, swallow you whole or, at the very least, give you allergies.
Under the crib's four-wall-no-top setup is a series of dangerous features, each helpfully outlined by the salesman, so we can decide how much we love this kid we had met, and could have been a dud.
"If the gaps between the bars are too wide the baby could get his arm stuck in there!"
"If there is space in the corner of the crib, the baby could get his foot stuck in there!"
"If the entire crib is not sealed off in a protective bubble, the baby will have to breathe human air!"
We navigated these perils like seasoned pros. We evaluated, consulted, examined, discussed, dissected, scrutinized, checked...and then went with the one that matched the walls. Also, it had a super cool, top secret drawer in the bottom. It was awesome.
But, truth be told: the crib was just a warm up. The real danger was in the crib's mattress, a 4-foot-by-2-foot hunk of menace.
Baby, there are approximately 1,455 different kinds of crib mattress, each more safe, more wonderful and more expensive than the last. There is the bottom level mattress, which - for $79 - is a plastic bag with a spring in it. The salesman assured us that any infant who slept on this mattress would grow up hunchbacked and addicted to crystal meth. But, if we were trying to save money, then they had this model in stock. It was called "The Deformer."
There were anti-allergy mattresses. There were mattress with squared-off corners, so there would be no gap in the corner, where monsters could hide. There were foam mattresses and spring mattresses. There were mattress sealed so they would not not have any seams.
One of the mattresses - we kid you not - could float in a pool. We thought that would be a strange place to find yourself: in a pool on a baby mattress. But, then, we had to wonder: Why aren't the other mattresses keeping you from drowning? Didn't they care?
Once we had decided on springs rather than foam, we faced a new challenge: tensile strength. How many springs should your mattress have? Or, in other words, how much did we really love our still hypothetical child?
Our friendly salesman assured us that we had many options when it came to the number of springs. Did we want 75 springs? 150? 252?
Of course, Baby at this point, we had never met you. But were still reasonably sure you were going to weigh somewhere in the eight to 12 pound range. 15 - tops. It would seem that 75 "triple-enforced" springs would be sufficient to support your body weight. 252 seemed to be overdoing it. Showing off, you know? We also had some fear that if we chose a mattress that tightly wound, we might lay you down for nap only to have you rocket toward the ceiling behind the power of 252 springs.
So, there we stood, in Babies-R-Us, looking at three mattresses - your father locked in a mental battle between his inherent cheapness (he hasn't bought underwear in six or seven years) and his desire not to warp you right of the gate.
We're proud to say that he did not go with the cheapest option. He went middle ground. He must really love you.
Love, Mom and Dad