What Elsie Needs

What Elsie needs most is to put on weight, to practice breathing, to avoid umbilical cord accidents, and to wait until September to arrive. But none of that is within any of our control. We can pray, but it's not in our control.

So instead we make plans and buy stuff we think she'll need after arriving. As I've previously said, shopping is a way of wrapping my head around big life changes, so I've done a bit of shopping to make the idea that I have a daughter more concrete. I knew that we already had a lot of clothing due to people's generosity when we were preparing for Neil. We have plenty of gowns with cute animals on them and short sleeve onesies with sports equipment and dinosaurs on them. But Elsie is a girl and a fall baby, so I figured some of her needs were different. For one it might be nice for her to have a few things that looked a bit more girly as well as a couple of dresses to go with all the sports equipment and dinosaurs she'll be wearing. For another she would be more likely to need long sleeve onesies early on. With that in mind, we got some long sleeve clothes and dresses at a Carter's outlet in Missouri in May, tights and headbands and a swimsuit at Other Mothers in Springfield, and footed pajamas at the Goodwill store in Lebanon (where my OB's office is). I got things in a variety of sizes and seasons because I hope she'll stick around and grow. I'm pretty sure my mind has now caught on that I have a daughter.

This is what I've labeled PJs in my inventory.
Yes, those are turtles and flowers on those cute PJs.

At the start of the third trimester, I started looking over the baby stuff we've got so I can figure out what to put on a baby registry. I've got a registry started on Amazon, and as soon as I've finished it, I'll post a link to it. Last time we also did a Wal-Mart registry, but nobody else's Wal-Mart had the same items that ours did, so it didn't make buying what we needed any easier. We'll just stick with Amazon this time.

The first items I looked at were the clothes. We have LOTS of clothes, possibly enough to get us to Christmas. Here's what I inventoried:

Item	# Owned
Swaddlers	3
Hooded Towels	3
No-Scratch Mittens	3 pairs
Booties	3 pairs
Socks	12+ pairs
Hats	5
Gowns	7
Sleep Sacks	2
Hooded Snow Suits	1
Clothes - Newborn
Long Sleeve PJs w/ Feet	3
Long Sleeve Onesie	1
Short Sleeve Onesie	6
Pants w/o Feet	3
Clothes – 0-3 months
Long Sleeve PJs w/ Feet	5
Long Sleeve PJs w/o Feet	2
Long Sleeve Onesie	9
Long Sleeve T-Shirt	1
Long Sleeve Side Snap T-Shirt	1
Short Sleeve Onesie	16!
Short Sleeve T-Shirt	1
Short Sleeve Side Snap T-Shirt	2
Pants w/ Feet	2
Pants w/o Feet	3
Jeans	1
Denim Overalls	1
Dresses	3
Cardigan	1
Sweater Vest	1

Comfy gowns and sleep sacks
for lounging at home.

We plan to put her in gowns and sleep sacks a lot when we're just staying at home, so the other clothes are necessary mostly for when we take her out. Since she's a fall baby, we probably won't take her out in the cold more than we have to, especially during flu season. Matt and I don't go out often now without a baby, so it wouldn't really be a change to stay home and sit around in our PJs with her. :)

I also found that we have more than a month's supply of baby wipes and disposable diapers (in a couple of sizes). And I've got a little bit of cloth diapering stuff that we can experiment with at home after we survive the first month or so. We'll eventually need more, but that's at least enough to get us started.


We probably don't need any store-bought blankets either. We welcome home-made blankets. If you have a talent for quilting, sewing, crocheting, or knitting, feel free to make a blanket especially for Elsie. I treasure the blankets I have from grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents and love the idea of Elsie having items made by family members. But we have a few receiving blankets and quite a few blankets and quilts, and crib bedding is discouraged by child safety experts. So if you see a cute blanket in a store, don't buy it unless it comes with promises of instant infant soothing and a money-back guarantee. If you do see such a  miracle blanket, please buy it. Buy two. :)

I just started looking at the baby gear a couple days ago. The gear inventory will probably need to be a different blog post. I went upstairs to the attic-like room that the baby gear was stored in and brought the breast pump and diaper bag downstairs. I had never opened the breast pump, which I got for less than $40 on clearance from Target. I just wanted to make sure it didn't look used: I don't think I like the idea of my daughter ingesting strangers' bodily fluids. Not only was the outside box still sealed but the individual components inside were also perfectly sealed in plastic. It seems to be new. Hurray! The diaper bag was not as hurray. There were a few items still in it: a sample package of baby wipes, a few diapers, and a Wint-O-Green Lifesaver. The Lifesaver had obviously been nibbled on. And on further inspection so had the baby wipes. Ugh! Mice in the baby stuff. The diaper bag itself didn't have any mouse pellets in it, but there was some fraying on one edge. I'm not sure if it was like that before, if it was caused by velcro snagging or by mice snacking. I also don't know if I can clean it enough to make me forget about the mice crawling through it. I looked on Amazon for a new diaper bag just in case, but I would want to see and touch a bag before getting it to make sure it seemed like it would meet our needs. Never having used a diaper bag, I don't even know what those needs are, but I feel like I could rule some bags out by handling them first.

Nibbles or snags on the diaper bag? I'm hoping it's snags.

Now that I know that mice have been around the baby gear I need to clean and inspect it all thoroughly.  I would have cleaned it anyway, but I'll probably disinfect and steam clean everything multiple times until my mind no longer sees phantom mice skittering over it. I'll try to do that soon so that I can assess any damage, figure out what we need, and finish the registry.