Ready and/or not

Four months ago when this whole kit n’ caboodle started with a plus sign on a peed-upon stick, Luke and Ilaughed (a week or so after getting over our shock) about the fact that we had just sold our changing table on Craigslist not a month before. Hahaha! Isn’t that ironic! We could have been a verse in that Alanis Morisette song!

Yeah, except now I’ve passed the halfway mark, and we’re on Craigslist, looking for a dresser that can double as a changing table.

The big girl dresser we graduated Rosie to. Adorable, no? Alas, sliiiightly too high for baby-changing.

The old gender switcheroo did a number on my brain—in more ways than one—because mentally I had already repurposed several of Rosie’s baby things for her little sister’s room (Mentally, I tell you. I am not quite Type-A enough, slash at all, to have any semblance of a nursery space prepared for this baby.) and pulled open a box of her tiniest (Adorable!Baby Rosie-scented! Sob!) clothes to sort through and hang in what would be the shared clothes closet for both girls. I also had a plan for how their room would look, which—though Ido try not to gender stereotype too much— is definitely different now that it will be a boy/girl room and not an all-girl-all-the-time estrogen-fest. So in some ways, Ifelt like I had been set back a good bit in the baby prep arena once my brain reset all its circuits to XY-prep mode.

For one thing, Noah’s baby clothes are seven years old, and mostly scattered all over to various friends and relatives and who knows where. I think my mom has a stash somewhere in her house, which in my mind Ihave built up to be an entire wardrobe of currently trendy and awesome apparel, but in truth is probably some little leather shoes with worn out soles and a few carrot puree-stained bibs. So baby boy clothes, I do not have so much of. Nor do Ihave much of anything for a baby, regardless of gender.

Look, we have this! That will be helpful! In … three years.

I do have very generous friends with very stylish young lads, and I know I will be offered hand-me-downs (which I will totally take you up on, ladies, in case you’re at all doubtful about hitting me up with some of that action) but Ithink since Idon’t actually have the stuff here in my house right this second, it makes me feel like this baby will have to spend the first few weeks of his life wrapped in an old undershirt of Luke’s with holes in the armpits.

Originally bought for baby girl (my one and only baby purchase thus far), but baby boy should rock them just fine and dandy, methinks. So, undershirt with Chucks, then! Progress!

But then Istep back, have a miniature Hershey’s or five, and take a deep breath and take stock in what we do have. We have a monitor, we have a crib (on loan to a friend, but should be back in plenty time), we have a carrier, we have some other things Ican’t think of right now, and we have …

Actually, that’s about it. I just remembered we also sold our travel system and our highchair. Haaaaaaaaahahahahaha. Alanis, you can have that one for free.

Oh, we do have toys covered quite nicely, I should note. He might be naked, but at least he won’t be bored!

Mostly, I think it’s my midsection that’s got me feeling antsy about the lack of baby stuff at only 24 weeks. I look down and I think I can’t have much longer to go, because how will my belly get bigger than that? Not possible, obviously. (Oh, but sadly it is quite possible.) But then Ilook at the calendar and think, “Pssh, I’ve got 16 weeks left! That’s eons!Forever! So much time!” And then I look back down and can see only the tips of my shoes and go right back to AhhhhhIhavenobabystuffmustgobuyallthethiiiiiingsgaaaaahhh!!

So, you could say it’s weighing on my mind a good bit, sad stretch of a pun intended.

However, yesterday I got a surprise package in the mail from my mother-in-law, and opened it up to find this:

Boy clothes in da house!

Hooray! Baby boy, we’ll save you from those holey undershirts yet.