Pumpkin Patch in Dressmart was the very first baby stuff store that we had dared venture into in our entire lives.
After the initial bewildered feeling ("Ohmygod my eyes!!! Why is everything so pink???") and getting our eyes adjusted to the level of brightness from all the pink clothes, we wondered why on earth would a mum want her 2 y.o. kid to wear a denim mini-skirt. It was hard to find an item of clothing that did not have pink or flowers or butterflies on it, and I could not figure out what boys' parents would buy. So we had a quick wander around the store - nothing that really tickled our fancy, and besides how could we justify spending that much on three square pieces of cloth just so a kid could drool on it? Or a pair of socks that costs more than my own, which by the way I will wear for longer than 3 months?
Moving on a bit further through the store brought some light relief. We were in the girls' section of the store, and had now reached the boys' section. I noted that the girls' section felt considerably larger and had lots more choice. Not unlike adults' clothes stores.
We didn't get anything that day - didn't know at the time whether we had a boy or a girl, and neither trucks nor flowers felt very gender-neutral.
Our next bold move involved The Baby Factory in Onehunga. We paid it two visits, the latest one being yesterday, for Ave's baby shower.
The store had a lot more sober feel to it, bright colours and the goods nicely organised by types - not by gender. The Pumpkin Patch merchandisers must be sexist now that I think about it. But again that overwhelming feeling of ignorance came to me again. Why are there 15 types of prams and buggies on display, would a booster seat with the All Blacks logo on it really make a difference to the kid's sporting abilities, and what's the difference between babygros, body suits, gowns, sleepsuits, rompers, singlets and stretch & grows? Why don't babies come with their basic accessories and a user manual on how to use them (the accessories, not the babies), and then we'd just need to go to the store to get the extras, just like with iPods?
We thought it was hard enough to buy clothes for us. Nooo way. Valuable lesson of the day: how to choose babies' clothing.
- How old will the baby be at the time of wearing the item?
- 00000 - Premature, a.k.a. prem
- 0000 - Newborn. But 000 is also for newborns, so maybe this is for small newborns. Or maybe for bigger prematures
- 000 - Newborn. See above. Though some newborns find this is too big. So maybe this is for big newborns.
- 00 - 3-6 months. Or was it 1-3 months? How long do newborns keep their stuff for?
- 0 - Somethingrather. We'll worry about it when we get there.
Oh, and some clothes also come with the age on the label (3m), others come with measurements (64cm). The trick is not to think that 3m is designed for 3-metre-long babies.
- At the time of the baby wearing the item, will the weather be hot or cold?
Fundamental question which we didn't know about till Oma Yoke showed up to provide some 3-times-mother wisdom. Fleece in December is a bad idea, unless a 12-hour trip to Europe with a 3-month-old baby was on the cards.
- Will it be a boy or a girl at the time of wearing the item, and hopefully for the rest of his/her life? As with Pumpkin Patch, clothes are either very girly or very *insert the word for the male equivalent here*
But we had to get something for Ave. Thankfully we had a list of stuff she wanted and it wasn't just clothes, but even then we got so confused that we only managed to choose three gifts before settling on a gift voucher.
So now I have this spreadsheet, creatively called Baby.xls, which contains 90 lines of items that can possibly be bought for Tadpole. I have flagged items that are must-haves for a travel bag, must-haves in general, and whether they can be replaced with other less fancy, non-portable, space-consuming items. I have just added a column on where the item would be best procured from (i.e. family & friends).
Pity my goldfish-like brain can't process all this information efficiently.
