Jan. 22: I am surrounded by a couch laden with little baby clothes. My neighbor, Kathy, has a four-month-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter, and she just brought me a huge basket full of clothes for tiny babies. I think that “little sister’s” wardrobe size just doubled. We had received so many hand-me-downs from Vicki when Andrew was little, I was a little worried that baby sister wouldn’t have quite enough clothes. That fear has now been banished.
I’ve been reveling in the little clothes. Folding them, stacking them, fondling them. Such sweet tiny outfits! What little socks and tiny hats. Such adorable little sleepers and dresses and gowns. I think I could hold them all afternoon.
Basking in the loveliness of baby clothes makes me miss my mom. If she were here, I would have called her right when I put Andrew down for his nap. Whether she was working or at home, I would have said, “As soon as you can, drop everything and come over to my house. We have some baby clothes to admire!” I may have even tried to hold off looking at them until she came over (probably not).
Then we would look at each one, hold it up, admire the gussets and the embroidery and the well-thought-out features. We would have come up with possible outfits, and Mom would have offered sage advice about various baby things. If she were here, I could have even gotten annoyed at her for a moment if I wanted to. That would be nice.
There are a couple pieces of clothing in the pile that are from some clothing lines that were around when Andrew was a baby. I remember looking at them with Mom and wondering if we should buy something from those lines in case someone had a baby girl someday. Maybe Maretta…or one of my friends… It sort of makes me happy and sad to look at those little outfits and remember some of those happy times. If there was one thing that made Mom ecstatic, it was shopping for clothes for kids. She often said that the only reason she had kids was so she could dress them. She was mostly kidding:)
With all these new clothes, I feel a little like it is Christmas Eve.
I have so much anticipation about this little person. It’s a sweet moment to be in. I’m not dealing with post-labor exhaustion. The baby hasn’t outgrown anything yet. It’s all just something sweet and wonderful to be thinking about. So I’ll pile the clothes around me and dream baby dreams until Andrew wakes up from his nap. It’s just me, Spooky, and the clothes:)