Greed, in various forms

I apologize in advance -- this is another baby stuff post. I'll eventually contribute some more thoughtful, journalistic prose to the blog. But in the mean time, you get pictures. :-)

So, this post is about all the stuff we've been acquiring, and greed in general. I've put links to baby registries at the bottom, but I'll start by writing about yarn greed.

I've made two baby sweaters so far:



These are both variations on the top-down sweaters from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. I also bought a pile of DK weight machine washable merino wool for two more sweaters and various hats:


I'm going to make newborn size hats out of the various shades of green, so the boys can look spiffy coming home from the hospital. The un-dyed wool is for two Aran sweaters, like the one I made a few years ago for my second cousin Ember. I'm going to make these in a ~12 month size, so that next fall the boys can toddle around in overalls and Irish sweaters. The red, orange, and yellow yarn is for two toddler-sized Jayne Cobb hats, because Dane and I are unrepentant nerds. I probably shouldn't have indulged is so much yarn -- particularly merino wool -- but, Knitpicks sends catalogs every month and the pictures are very, very tempting. Besides, the heaps of yarn lying around the house are a good reminder that I should be knitting diligently. And like having overflowing shelves of books and a full pantry, a stock pile of yarn makes me feel rich.

We haven't just been acquiring yarn, though. We're slowly making progress on turning half of the "spare" room into a nursery. We've had the crib for a little while, and small things that we'd gotten in the mean time were just being dumped inside. Yesterday, I finally found a good quality dresser/changing table for sale near by. Craigslist has continued to be kind to us. So far we've gotten the crib, twin stroller, dresser, changing pad, and the breast pump through them. All of the the things we've bought were either essentially new in the packaging or in very good condition. We've spent a grand total of $280 on a list of things that would cost >$1200 from the store.

With the addition of the dresser, the nursery is beginning to come together.


We're planning to put up the paper lanterns from our wedding for lighting. We've got some beautiful background prints from the cartoon Samurai Jack that need to be framed and put on the wall. And we need to get going on the origami mobile that we're planning to make.

As you can see, we haven't made much progress yet.

In terms of organizing the nursery, we got the dresser just in time. About 2 hours before it arrived, we also received a lot of cool baby stuff from our friends Brian and Summer. They had a baby boy last year. And they put together a really cool care package for us, complete with blankets, clothes, hand-made toys, books, a long letter, and lots of little notes with useful advice. So, that gave us a good start on onsies and the like; and we added their letter to our binder of baby advice that several of our friends who are new parents have taken the time to write out for us. Many thanks to all of you. Here's a picture of Dane and the cats surveying some of the loot:


That brings us to the really greedy portion of this post, where I talk about things that we don't have yet. :-) Several people have asked us what they can buy for us, or send used. Because we're having twins, we've decided to shamelessly accept all of these offers.

The number one thing that people can send us is DIAPERS. We're planning to use cloth diapers, for several reasons. First, it's always good to not put things in land fills. Second, many of the chemicals in disposable diapers are banned in products for adults, but somehow ok to put on babies (??). And third, we calculated that cloth diapers could save us $4000 over the next 2-3 years. Right now, we're conveniently ignoring the fact that we'll be spending all of our waking hours during those years doing laundry.

At any rate, we need an astronomical number of diapers and diaper covers. Based on extended consultation with friends and books, we think we need 80-120 on hand when the babies come home from the hospital. We also need 10 newborn-sized diaper covers, and slightly smaller numbers of larger sizes. I've created a registry for the diaper covers and some of the diapers for anyone who'd like help contribute to keeping our babies' bottoms clean. Just click here, and search for my registry under Hanna Sizemore. I haven't registered for the full amount of diapers that we need; we're perfectly happy to get any flat or prefold cotton diapers you come across at Target, Wal-Mart, or the back of your linen closet.

We're also very happy to accept any new or used infant gowns, footed sleepers, onsies, swaddling blankets, etc. that you might run across. As I mentioned, we have no shame.

Finally, we've created two registries for miscellaneous other things. For car seats and "gear" we have a registry at Babies R Us. You can search for it under either of our names. Some of the things on this list are expensive, and the only things that we really need new from the list are the car seats. Dane has also made a registry at Amazon.com, for all of the baby and kids books that we're looking forward to having an excuse to read again (and again, and again). A search for either of our names should find it.

Ok. I'm all greeded out -- though I can't promise that my dignity will return before the babies finish college. I'll leave you with a picture of Dane learning how car seats work: