A and M are visiting MIL for an unprecidented second visit in one month. They are also making the 2.5 hour drive to visit with A’s aunt and cousin who are in town from Shanghai. The aunt has been relatively supportive of our adoption plans, so I am hopeful that no major drama will happen on this trip. I stayed home to try to get some work done.
I am taking advantage of a day alone in the house to start organizing things for the new baby. It doesn’t mean I think we will get our referral soon, but it is rare that I have unfettered access to the attic without M bothering me and trying to get in there so she can end up with a big rusty nail jammed through her foot.
I decided to pull out all the clothes I like (or would allow the new baby to wear) in sizes 6-12 months and 12-18 months. It was a surprisingly large pile of clothes.
Now I just have to wash them all, sort them by size and figure out what I need to buy to fill in the gaps. Strangely, I only found three pairs of pajamas. Where could all the pajamas have gone? Surely, we must have had some at some point, didn’t we? Maybe all the sleep deprivation I experienced in M’s first year made me forget that we must only have dressed her in a t-shirt and diaper for bed? I have no idea.
Also, I just realized that if we have a boy, we are going to have to spend a ton of money to clothe him. There was barely anything in that pile that could qualify as gender-neutral.
I also uncovered a load of not-too-crappy (yet) baby toys. If I remember correctly, M didn’t really need more than what you can see here and a few other items I have stored in the playroom until she was about 15 months old. I am hopeful that we are much more savvy at avoiding the giant piles of plastic crap that were foisted on us the last time we had a baby.
After I get the gigantic mess I made with the clothes and toys cleaned up, I am going to start looking at some packing lists. I have been slowly acquiring some of the basics, but I think it is about time to start buying a few more bits and pieces so we can avoid spending a pile of money right before we travel. As long as we don’t buy any meds that expire in the next 6-8 months, I think we will be ok.
Huh. Maybe we will have a baby around one of these days. Weird.
Well, I guess you don’t need baby clothes. But if I see something too cute to pass up then….
It’s The Great Pyjama Mystery of 2006. Seriously. I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about wanting some really cute pyjamas for Little E. Can I find any that aren’t one piece? Nope. There are pyjama thieves about.
I used to have one of those alligator toys for Josh. I wish we had kept it and unfortunately I can’t find another.
I hope your referral does come next week. How awesome!
We have the same exact pajama problem. Where did they all go?
Also, the new baby will play with all of M’s older-kid toys and will steadfastly refuse to play with any baby toys (except for baby dolls–El P is head-over-heels in love with my baby dolly from when I was a toddler–the telephone car, the jingle worm, and the bead wires). So you won’t need any new toys.
Note to self: Send lovely gift of plastic crap to HFC. Heh.
The pajamas. They wear out. And they get spilled on, vomited on, pooped in, and take many other forms of abuse. Plus you let your kid wear them when the are a wee too big for them, waiting for the next season to buy new jammies, and poof–they are stretched out and/or ripped and you throw them away. The end.