1) As soon as you and your husband begin discussing having a child, immediately ‘accidentally’ wander into baby sections of stores and buy things ‘just in case’. Hide them like crack in the back of your sock drawer in a plastic bag marked ‘cat stuff’.
2) Once the stick turns blue begin upping the ante by asking people where they got their adorable baby outfits, causing them to ask when you might be expecting to expect something little of your very own. (Pshaw all of these suggestions while flirtatiously convincing them that you are, in fact, preggers and counting down. If done correctly everyone will know you’re pregnant waaaaay before 12 weeks while still enabling you to tell your husband that “you SWEAR you didn’t tell anyone”.)
3) At the 12 week mark, wake up very early. Call everyone on the mandatory ‘call me first or I’ll kill you’ list. Then put on the shirt that makes you look fattest and head outside to tell absolutely everyone else you know. At this point people will ask you two things: 1) How far along you are. 2) Regardless of the answer to #1, whether you know the gender.
4) Anytime between 12-19 weeks the offers of clothes will start to come in. Because you ‘need to be prepared’ and ‘it’s better to have too much than too little’, accept everything. Even if you are handed a bag of dirty single handknit socks, they are baby socks, and therefore precious and need to be squirreled away somewhere until you have time to accept the horror of your addiction.
5) At random points during the day look through some of the bags that are arriving weekly in your life. Start ‘culling’ the clothing by removing the worst stained offenders or stuff that is truly ugly. Convince yourself that all little girls look amazing in boxy rugby jerseys with teddy bears sewn on the front. Bundle 99% of the clothes back into the bags and tell your husband you’re ‘almost there’ with the organizing.
6) At some point realize that things are getting out of control. You have 82 identical white shirts and have had to clear out your own closet floor to stack boxes of bibs. At this point, even if you have clothed a child previously and therefore can be expected to know what you’re doing, completely freak out about how much is too much or too little. Lament that Valium is not recommended in pregnancy and book an entire evening to ‘go through the clothes once and for all.’
7) Wash everything. Dry everything. Be picky. Make multiple piles. Debate whether organizing according to season or by size is more logical. Silently curse whomever decided that every single 3-6 month outfit should fit a completely different-sized child. Cry a bit.
8) Get exhausted halfway through the task and fall asleep. Repeat this step over and over again because you’ve forgotten what you’ve washed, you’ve come across new information about how many shoes an infant needs, someone tells you that THEIR babies only ever wore ‘X’ and therefore ‘X’ is absolutely the best thing ever, or because your toddler, in a bout of ‘helping’, touches all of the white stuff with cupcake hands.
9) Towards the end of your pregnancy: start making lists. The lists will serve no purpose whatsoever and will get lost in the shuffle, but you’ll feel a lot better about the clothing if you have some. Remember that your previous children ALSO had baby clothes and maybe you should use some of those, too. Pull out of storage every Rubbermaid container you own, causing your husband to say inexcusable things under his breath when he comes home.
10) Despite having gleefully accepted these bags of clothes from your friends, neighbours and complete strangers, discover that NO ONE will take anything from you. You know that the clothes are ‘too good’ to waste, so start your campaign to find them a ‘good home’.
11) As your due date nears make up a stack of ‘stuff they can wear right away’ and agonize over it. Debate the pros and cons of bringing your own sleepers to the hospital or using their baby gowns. Pack three different ‘coming home’ outfits in case the weather turns out to be amazing, terrible, or a hurricane. Pack three different bunting bags because you might get that nurse who thinks a child can’t wear anything thicker than a cotton tee shirt while sitting in a car seat.
12) Toss everything else into ‘organized chaos’ and leave for your mother to do something with while you’re giving birth.
3 comments:
Exactly.
Yes.
I sorted the toddler's clothes today. I sorted some of the twins' stuff yesterday. Am I the only mother in the world who hates putting newborns in onesies? DOes everyone else have some trick to getting a spit-up-and-pooped-on shirt over a newborn's head without it being completely revolting? I have about thirty onesies to give away. I'd forgotten that I hate them, although I did remember that zippered sleepers are the best thing in the world for two a.m. changes.
Because we had twins, we have received roughly enough clothing for them to last until they graduate from high school. Unfortunately it's all in sizes 1 to 3 months, so we're thinking about making them patchwork outfits.
One of our neighbours has been averaging bringing us an outift a day for two weeks. We're drowning.
Now, if only I could convince these people to start buying me chocolate, instead.
Also, I spent a lot of time making lists. They do make you feel productive when you're a thousand weeks pregnant and have no energy. It's nice.
Genius. So funny!
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