Tell me something,” Andy said. It was a weeknight and we were in the car, on the way to dinner. “How much time did you spend on citybaby today?” He called me on my new habit. Ever since The Celebrity had turned me on to it, citybaby’s “expecting” message board had become an obsession rather than simply a resource. But I had three rationalizations for my fixation:

Rationalization one: I only browse, never post. Rationalization two: I work from home; citybaby is companionship – a virtual co-worker, if you will. Rationalization three (which applies not only to citybaby addiction, but also to increased consumption of chocolate croissants): I’m pregnant; leave me alone.

Andy had heard them all, so I just shot him a sidelong glance through narrowed eyes and said, “I wasn’t on for very long.” Whether or not that was a lie depended on whether having the Web site open all day and clicking on it periodically counted as “very long.”

Before I could ponder this further, we reached our destination. We were having dinner with Josh and Amy, college friends who lived in Park Slope with their six-month-old baby boy, Eli. “Perfect timing,” I said as we shimmied into a spot. Our clock read 7:50. We’d been told to arrive between 7:45 and 8 p.m. so as not to interfere with Eli’s bedtime.

Amy let us in to the apartment. “Josh is in there putting Eli down,” she explained. “After his bath, he reads him a story. We can order the food now and by the time he’s done, it should be here.” Amy had mentioned that having us over for the meal meant ordering in during the conversation when she’d told us about Eli’s bedtime.

“It’s nice that Josh reads to Eli,” I said, smiling.

“Yeah,” Amy said. And then, noting my naivete, she added, “Bedtime routines are really important.”

“I guess we’ll be learning all about that soon enough,” I said with a catchall clasp of my belly.

Amy quit her publishing job after Eli was born. She invited us over for the meal after learning that I was pregnant. So now that we were together and she was telling me about bedtime routines, it seemed only fitting that I say, “I hope you won’t mind my picking your brain about baby stuff,” so I said it.

“Are you kidding?” she said. “I don’t mind at all.” She handed Andy a Thai take-out menu and said, “Have you started your registry yet? Because if you haven’t, you should check out Buy Buy Baby.”

“Registered?” Andy asked. “I thought you only did that for weddings.”

“Oh, no,” Amy shook her head. “It is a must for baby gear.” Andy must have looked skeptical. “Trust me,” she said, “you don’t want duplicate stuff. If you don’t register, you’ll end up with four bouncy seats.”

“Bouncy seats?” I said. “Yeah,” Amy said. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to get one that vibrates. We got the Baby Bjorn one and it’s great. Only black and primary colors. I so didn’t want to be one of those people whose apartments get taken over by baby stuff.” I fought the impulse to look around the apartment, but I had noticed two strollers on the way in.

“We did cave on the swing, though,” she said, gesturing to an enormous contraption taking up a corner of the living room, which featured a multicolored fish mobile and an elaborate blue-and-turquoise seat cushion. Amy shrugged and said, “Fisher-Price.”

“Is someone buying you your layette?” Amy continued. “Because if they are, you should go to Lester’s. Buy Buy Baby’s fine for three to six months, but you want the softest stuff on a newborn baby.”

“What’s a layette?” Andy dared to venture.

“It’s the clothes and towels and stuff for a newborn baby.” Citybaby had taught me that much.

“And have you thought about diapers pails?” I hadn’t. “The Dekor is much better than the Genie. Much easier to change the bags.”

Two hours and some good pad thai later, Amy still had not come up for air. She had even brought out three-ring binders, jumbo-packed with baby info. My contribution to the dinner conversation had been limited to “mm-hmms” and “reallys”; neither of the men had spoken once.

Now that we had finished eating, Amy led me to a corner of their bookshelf-lined living room to show me her must-read baby books. She may not have wanted to be someone whose apartment gets taken over by baby paraphernalia, but her bookshelves were positively overflowing with baby books. “This one has great general information about sleep habits, but is really poorly edited,” she said, handing me a paperback. She was on one side of her computer desk; I was on the other. “This one is okay,” she said, handing me another, the cover of which featured a blonde with a creepy grin holding a smiling baby, “but she’s this British Nanny and – I don’t know – her tone can be kind of irksome.”

I nodded along as she prattled on, feeling my mind drift off. Of course Amy meant well, but this was what was meant by “too much information.” I felt myself fading, so I reached behind me to rest a steadying hand on her desk. In doing so, I unintentionally jiggled the mouse and woke Amy’s computer from its sleep mode. As the computer whirred back to life, there on the monitor was a familiar maroon-and-black window: citybaby.

Suddenly, the evening made sense: Amy’s overwhelming amount of information and her unquenchable compulsion to share it was shockingly familiar. I had encountered her staccato blurt-it-all-out rhythm without the give-and-take of normal conversation before. Amy was a message board come to life. People on the boards often mentioned IRL – in real life – behavior. Would you do/say/act like this IRL was a popular question. My guess was that Amy would have to answer “yes.”

I thought about bringing up citybaby right then, but didn’t. Hey, I was only browsing.