Saying goodbye to things...

We've been saying "bye bye" to things a lot around our house lately.  As our garage slowly fills up with rubbermaid containers filled with categorized baby items, I feel sad but excited.

The first thing to go were her newborn clothes.  Sadly, she grew out of these before I even packed up my maternity clothes.  I packed these up last fall, but it still makes me sad.  All those tiny bits--sleepers and gowns and hats and tiny long sleeved onsies.  :-(  The other day she dug out some stuff from the bottom drawer of her dresser, including a newborn hat that could fit over a softball, now it looks like a shrunken beanie on her head.  I say i'm sad because i'm faced with the reality that my "little baby" is a giganto 93rd percentile toddler practically running through our home.

o this is me early on in them....

The next was my maternity clothes.  Would you believe part of me misses those? lol.  I miss this one pair of Khakis that I wore my entire pregnancy.  They were these adjustable waist cargo khakis from gap maternity.  I'll dig up a photo of me in them.  These pants were so friggin awesome.  I totally wore them until I was atleast 3 months post partum.  I liked them because they had an acutally zipper and button, so you couldn't tell they were maternity (atleast in my dillusional mind).  They had stretchy tabs in the inside that you could button to make tighter or looser.  They grew with me to the end! God bless these pants.  These pants went in the bin for "next time."
The rest of the maternity goodies were washed and packed into the rubbermaid.  Although to be quite honest, since most of the pants are based on your pre-pregnancy size and I'm probably going to be two sizes smaller (because I'm already 1 1/2 sizes smaller now), I don't know how well they'll fit.  We all know they'll fit at the end when I'm the size of a house again!  I never quite found maternity jeans I liked.  I'm going to shop around more "next time."  This is another phrase we have been using a lot lately "next time.

Me in them later on....

So to shorten up these diatribes---I have 4 huge bins of things to save for "next time" which include:
Maternity Clothes
0-3 month clothes (mostly unisex)
3-6 month clothes (50% unisex, 50% girly)
6-12 month clothes (girly all the way!)
12-18 month clothes (girly as girly can be)
Birp clothes, bibs, blankets (salvageable ones)

Last night I cleaned out all of Mimi's toys and packed away all the infant toys, like plush rattles and carseat toys etc.  It made me so friggin' sad!
I also have been slowly washing and wrapping larger items in plastic, such as bouncy seats, infant carseat, play mat, exersaucer, bassinet, etc.  I have some stuff that my friend lent me that I need to wash really well and pass on back to her to clutter her house! Besides, she'll have another baby soon enough! She was also kind enough to lend me her swing way back when...still on the fence as to whether or not I'll buy one "next time."

Next up---the breast pump and bottle stuff.  I'm really torn about packing up my pump.  As soon as I stopped the mid-day pumping session, within in 2 friggin' days my supply dropped to 8 ounces flat.  Are you kidding me?! 15 to 8 in two days!  So I fear it is time to sterilize up 'ol Betsy's parts and pack her away.  I call my Medela double electric pump Betsy.  Do I throw away the plastic storage bottles? They're kind of scratched and yellowed.  I mean how much could it cost to re-buy them next time? I don't need to be so thrifty that I am poisoning the non-existent new baby with bacteria growing in Betsy's storage bottles over the next two years right?! or should I sterilize the sh*t out of them and put them in ziplocs?  Same goes for the bottles too--some of the Avent bottle I used are 9-12 $'s a piece--i'm tempted to just through out the nipples and keep the rings, caps and bottles.  Advice please!

So for now the rest of Mimi's baby-ish items are safely visible and making me feel warm and fuzzy still.  We still use her crib, changing table and highchair daily.  We will be able to use the Britax seats until she's like 4 or something---Clothes (12-18, 18-24), she is safe for the time being.

So when I say i'm sad, it's because my "little baby" isn't little.  Packing away the breastpump is the last nail in the "I have an baby" coffin.  I think now I just have a toddler.  No more Betsy and very little "boob action" lately.  I know Mimi is not interested anymore because she used to try to tackle me when I was getting dressed to get to my boobs any chance she got, now she's just like "oh yeah there's those, no need to get excited."   BUT...

I am starting to (scary as it may be) get so excited about what it will be like to have another baby someday.  I am excited to think about how my (non-existent) future pregnancy might go...would I look the same? would I gain the same? would we find out the sex this time? what would I have? what hospital would I pick this time? how friggin fun it will be to flaunt a hug gut and have it be beautiful lol......and I am pumped to someday take out all that stuff from the rubbermaids, re-wash it out of nesting instinct, and use it all over again with fat baby #2.

Well sorry for the long post on baby and pregnancy nostalgia---Hope you're all well!