Surely you know me well enough to know that this was coming, right?

So.

I am just days away from finding out if Young Money is a he or a she and today is the day of Young Money’s “turning in the oven,” being half-baked, whatever.  Twenty weeks.  TWENTY WEEKS!

As I’ve now gotten the “what the hell do I, ballooning woman, wear?” situation under control and begin to imagine what it will be like to get back in my old clothes in a less-faraway someday, other sartorial concerns have taken over.  Namely, the dressing of Young Money:  you mean babies need to be dressed??

Yes, I know.  Arguably, babies in hot climates can go much more nekkid, but still… I’m no hippie, not even remotely.  So, for the sake of social acceptability, and because changing a onesie is easier than giving a baby a bath when he/she upchucks, my child will be fully dressed at most times.  But fully dressed in WHAT?

And I’m not even going to start on the impossibility of finding a good array of cute gender-neutral colored clothes, which I’m all for.  After all, Young Money won’t be an only child if I have anything to do with it, and I plan on dressing more than one kid in those clothes, and I’m cheap, so there’s plenty of incentive for keeping cool, color-wise.  I also have no intention of painting the baby room pink or blue, nor of dressing them in putrid pinks or oh-so-champly blues just because that’s what baby clothes makers say babies should wear.  But seriously, the pinks and the blues rule–and if you opt out of that, all you have left are the wishy-washiest of yellows and greens. WHERE are the bright greens and yellows and oranges and funky graphic prints?  Please let me know if you find them.

No.  This is not a color tirade.  It’s that and a bit more.

You see, what happens if you’re a blindy like me is that you look on the website, say, Old Navy or Diapers.com.  You find something that is acceptable in terms of non-dishwater colors.  You note a cute print here, a sweet detail there, or a cheapness (I mean, value) that cannot be passed over.  You decide to take a closer look and gravitate the mouse over said baby apparel to see what it’s like.  And then you notice it. IT.

Mommy Loves Me.

Daddy’s Princess.

Mommy’s Little Man.

I HEART HEART HEART Mommy/Daddy/Grandma.

Giggles For Grandma.

Auntie’s Favorite Niece.

The Young Annointed Cute Savior Of Humankind.

Papa’s Poopster.

(I kid on the last two… but only because I’ve yet to come across them.  I know they MUST exist).

Upon seeing this–and after manually shutting my jaw and apologizing to the dog for obscenities screamed at the blameless computer screen–I then have to fight my gut instinct to close the page, run from the computer, and begin weaving my child’s wardrobe from dry palm fronds.  The process of reasoning begins and goes something like this:

• Is the horrid saying just a patch that can be removed?
• Is it small enough that I can put a patch over it, of, say, monkeys or frogs or elephants or, um, monkeys?
• Is it small enough that my blindy self might not notice if I commit to holding the baby chest-to-chest (or taking my glasses off)  whenever it wears the offending outfit?
• Is it in a place where vomit will happen, therefore obliterating the saying for most of the item’s life and making me grateful for the upchucky tendencies of babies?
• Is it cute enough, in terms of redeemable comfort features or bright colors, that I can overlook it and just deal with it?

Usually, it isn’t cute enough for me to overlook the cheesiness and move on.  Plus, I don’t WANT to move on–isn’t it my fundamental right, as Young Money’s keeper, to look at my child without getting ranty?

And it’s such a pervasive problem because otherwise perfectly nice baby clothes get hijacked by this nonsense.  Why do you need to put “Daddy’s Sweetie” on a onesie with an adorable giraffe print?  Is there something about bears on a nightie that requires “Granny’s Goo Goo” or some other nonsense to be slapped on the front?

It would be one thing if it just happened on plain baby clothes–you know, stripes plus a stupid saying, or solid plus a stupid saying. However, this shit finds its way onto even the coolest patterns.  Oh, you like that frog print?  Well, wait till you see “Mommy’s Bundle of Joy” scrawled in between two of the cute frogs, “Where’s Waldo”-style.  If I want to dress my child in a jumper with a cat hat (because again, it’s my inalienable right as the child’s keeper to make it look ridiculous for my own amusement), I don’t see why I need to have my dreams dashed by some stupid saying.  Cats don’t talk, and babies don’t either–that’s the beauty of both of them.

Clothing manufactures, listen up:  I don’t need my child’s clothes to talk to me.  So can it, will you?

That’s where I am right now.  I don’t have to buy anything this second, so I’m using this time to practice wading through this stuff, get a handle on my rantiness, and get used to the idea that I might have to cave in, at some stage.

It’s not like I don’t have a back-up plan.  Right now, that plan looks like a monk’s wardrobe of white onesies for the child, to be supplemented by shorts and/or skirts that I’ll make out of scraps, factory-style, in a frenzied panic over this horrid baby-clothes nonsense from now until Young Money arrives.

And anyway, when you have -8.75 eyesight, removing your glasses is ALWAYS a back-up plan.