Hand-me-downs

When I was pregnant with the Belly I was so convinced we would need to buy all new everything, especially clothes-wise. I saved some of the boys’ few gender neutral things (there were very few to start with), but even the grand total of those were like 10 outfits spread out in sizes under 2t.

The boys had quite a few hand-me-downs, primarily from my mom’s friend who has a boy just under three years older than Zach. (This would be Jared – Zach’s best friend) Even so, between Jared and Zach, what made it to Ryan was primarily consigned to play outside clothes. Since I was in school at the time I would always use my refund to stock up on new clothes for the boys. But there’s a little boy my mom watches who is about a year younger than Ryan, so to carry on the good clothes karma, I passed a lot of the still good clothes to him.

Out of each sizing of clothes I would keep 1-2 of my favorite outfits the boys had had as a sort of just in case. Plus I would set aside anything that had a special meaning. Fast forward a little bit and I find out I’m pregnant with the Belly. Even before I found out her gender I knew we would need more clothes. Then when I found out her gender the extent of new clothes we would need to buy just grew. I mean seriously, I couldn’t put her in boy clothes. My mom has old pictures of me and my brother and you can see where my brother and I would be wearing some of the same outfits at different ages. My mom’s favorite set of these pictures is where we have on the same set of corduroys and a sweater. Cute, yes. But not what I wanted to do for the Belly Pie.

Now we get to today (figuratively and relatively), and the Belly is going through growth spurts faster than we can buy her new clothes. Seems like a year of not growing a lot is catching up on her all at once. And luck of luck, it’s catching up on her as it’s getting cold so clothes that fit are very much in need. When she started showing a fondness for wearing her brother’s shirts as sleep-shirts and around the house-shirts I quit just tossing all clothes of one size into a bag for that little boy, and started saving some for Miss Pie to use, but even so they’re big. This weekend I started going through the boys’ closet (HUGE mess – has never really been cleaned in the two years we’ve been here) and I found the top to Ryan’s favorite pajamas when he was two. (bottoms are still MIA) I set it aside for the Belly, and when she woke up this morning poopy through her diaper I put it on her along with a pair of blue sweats. She might not look automatically like a girl, but hey, at least she’s warm. Plus, I get a little chuckle out of seeing her dressed like Ryan. lol