Preamble to the upcoming registry

I'm writing this section for people who have been requesting that I create a baby registry.  If that's not you, then please skip this post.  :)

Carolyn’s baby registry!

General notes:

• First of all, I wanted to say that it’s a very generous offer to buy something useful or fun for my baby and I, and I’m really grateful that you are considering it. (For those of you who have been asking!) I think that giving gifts to a baby and its mama is a really generous act of community and I'm honoured if you chose to help support our journey into becoming a tiny family of 2. I am very pleased to acept gifts of cash or actual gift items, but I'm just asking that you consider the following before helping me out with things that might not actually be as helpful to me as they would be to some other families.
• I also wanted to say that I'm not really comfortable with a traditional registry list because it promotes specific retailers that might have maked up prices or might be at stores that my friends and family don't like shopping at. So, I am not officially registering for any gifts!  Instead, I'm making this online list and you can write a comment (anonymous, if you like) saying that a certain item has been taken care of.  I hope that works!  I might also consider creating a link for people who want to give a cash gift, but I won't be organising that unless people ask for it.
• You should know that I am not planning on finding out the sex of the baby before the child is born, and that even once s/he is born I am not interested in any highly gender-specific toys or branded items for the baby.  (e.g. no Disney Princesses or Bob-the-builder type stuff, no cars and camo for baby boys and no frilly stuff or tutus for baby girls.) Once my child is old enough to take a personal interest in those things, I’ll make choices with them about what brands/TV characters, etc, that we will be consuming as a family.  Also, in case you are buying some gender-neutral baby stuff, you should know that my favourite colours for baby are orange, green, grey, brown and red and that I don’t like blue unless it is mixed in with a lot of other colours.  I think pink is a perfectly acceptable colour to put on a boy, so don't work too hard to avoid pink. (Truly, I like pink a lot... I just don't want to overdose on it.)
• I plan to have a forest / woodland creatures theme to my baby’s décor, so things that feature Canadian animals, trees and plants or a camping theme would be appreciated (sometimes I am a bit of a treehugger)!  As many of you know, I especially love squirrels, chipmunks and raccoons. (I also love lobsters and Atlantic ocean themed stuff, even though it doesn't fit with the forrest theme.)
• My baby will be sleeping in my bedroom for the first 6 months or more, so I am not planning on collecting a lot of nursery furniture or décor items.  I will have a corner of my bedroom decorated to celebrate the baby, and plan to have the décor theme come out in things all around the houses, like with blankets, clothes, toys, etc. 
• I really love gifts that are second-hand, handmade by you or from local small businesses. This is my first choice of small businesses to support because it is in Ottawa and my friend’s sister owns it:  http://www.extraordinarybabyshoppe.com She specialises in cloth diapers, baby carriers and natural/green parenting.
• I'm especially excited about getting hand-me-downs and garage sale items. If you like garage sales and want to shop with a mission, I am pleased to become your muse.
• I'll be breaking this "registry" down into different headings according to themes.  I’ll attach web links to a variety of websites as examples, but I don’t actually care where you buy the various things.  I'm just attaching the web links for illustrative purposes.

P.S. I really don’t like monkeys (I think they’re creepy) and there seem to be a lot of monkey-themed baby items out in the stores right now, so I’m asking to please avoid monkey-themed clothing and toys! Also, no noisy electronic toys, please. Thanks!

p.s.2: Depending on what apartment I end up getting, I might end up with a super small nursery like this one http://offbeatmama.com/2009/11/closet-baby-nursery or sharing a room with the baby right up until he/she is in preschool, so please keep that in mind if you are tempted to buy things that aren’t on my list. I won’t have any room to store any extra items (even especially cute ones) and I plan to offer a lot of hand-me-downs as baby grows through different phases. I’m going to have to be very efficient and space-conscious. I might need to learn how to be tidy!