So there I was, on the floor of the Walmart deli, crawling after my baby who’d made a break for the puddle of spilled rotisserie chicken juice, when a grown man approached me slowly and asked: “Um. Do you need a cart?”

It was in that moment that I realized: I am that mom right now.

Infertility is a sensitive topic, y’all. Most of us who’ve battled it, do it quietly and privately, hiding our constant pain behind the thinnest veil of fake happiness.

So if someone has actually confided in you with their infertility struggle, don’t screw it up. Or you might get punched.

Women fighting infertility are already warriors. But they’re warriors who are also juiced up on hormones and pent-up emotion, so the last thing you want to do is piss one of them off unwittingly.

Here are a few things to avoid saying, and some alternatives that may save you some bruising:

First of all, can we talk about how insane first birthday parties are?! We all know it, we all joke about it, and then we all turn right around and host a full three-ring circus in honor of our little snowflakes.

I started planning for my baby’s birthday 3 months in advance. We’ve been on a pretty tight budget since I transitioned to part-time at work, so I thought, we’re gonna keep this thing low-key. Just family and a few friends at our house, homemade food and cake, and DIY decorations and invitations.

Well, 3 months, 50 people, 5 smash cakes, and about a zillion hours (and dollars) of crafting later… we had ourselves a three-ring circus.

How did we get here?

Yes, yes, I know, car seats save a lot of lives. Our parents shuttled us around in plastic buckets in the passenger seat of their cars, and it’s a miracle any of us survived that. But that doesn’t mean car seats weren’t created by an evil sadist who wants to watch the world burn.

Let’s be real, everyone knows it doesn’t matter what you get your baby – no matter what it is, he’s just going to want to play with the box it came in. Or a spatula. Or the TV remote. Or the dang Christmas tree that now has multiple layers of security surrounding it to protect it from his sticky, grabby, destructive paws.

But, we all still have this irrational desire to get our child the “perfect” gift, one that will surely bring him endless joy, that he’ll remember forever and ever and definitely not forget all about the instant he spots the pile of wrapping paper trash from across the room. So, now that I’ve gotten a year of overzealous toy-buying under my belt, it’s easy to look back and remember the ones that actually did stick around for more than 5 minutes. Here are some of the favorites at our house from each stage: