One Less: Box of Baby Clothes

I pulled out all of our stored clothes in sizes 0000 through to 4.  

There were a lot of clothes.  About 8 boxes in total.  I counted 35 shirts in size 1, and ten of those had long sleeves.  I live in the tropics!

I don't need to keep it all.  The Big Boy has always had too many clothes, and I have been quite happy with the smaller rotation of clothes The Small Boy has had:  5 or 6 t-shirts and 5 or 6 singlets/vests and 4 or 5 pairs of shorts (he wears just a nappy without shorts around home).  During the cooler months he has also had 2 long sleeved t-shirts, 2 long pants, 2 jumpers and 4 growsuits for bed.    I found as The Big Boy got older he wore singlets less often and t-shirts most of the time, and I anticipate The Small Boy will do the same.

I decided to keep in each size:

- no more than 8-10 shirts
- no more than 5 or 6 pairs of shorts
- no more than 3 long pants
- no more than 3 long sleeved shirts
- no more than 3 jumpers

I kept an extra pair of winter clothes because the toddler years are just that bit messier than the baby years, in my experience.  

The remainder of the items were divided into two piles.  Things I didn't really want to keep because it was used but I wasn't enamoured with it have gone to a charity shop.  Things that still had price tags on (mostly gifts, some stuff that I had bought and put away then not needed) has been listed as bulk lots in each size on Ebay.  A few brand new things I kept because they were given to The Small Boy as gifts and I quite like them.

I managed to get all the clothes down to 5 1/2 boxes, and there is still room for the Size 0 (which the Small Boy is in now) clothes to go into in the next month or two.  

Pure Wipes

In my posting haste last night I forgot to add a link to Pure Wipes.   I originally bought them to clean grubby hands and faces when we were travelling around New Zealand last year, because they were very compact to fit in my bag.  They come in a little tube of ten, and are made of pure cotton. Just add a little water, about a tablespoon does the job, and you have a face washer.  Refill packs of 80 wipes are available.  

Just thinking about it, I could probably ditch the baby wipes and just use Pure Wipes when we are out.  We aren't often out long enough to need to do nappy changes away from home, and I usually only use wipes for a messy job (if you get my drift).  I don't use baby wipes at all at home: only face washers.  I bought a bulk pack of wipes because that was the most economical solution, but I usually only use disposable wipes and nappies full time when we are travelling. (More on that another day.)

Pure Wipes are considerably more expensive than Huggies wipes, and Huggies are the most expensive brand of wipes.  I buy Huggies because they do the best job. The tube of ten Pure Wipes takes up no more than a fifth of the space of the Huggies Travel Pack.  The Pure Wipes need water. But, considering I only use one or two wipes a week on average, and if I need to use a wipe I'm hopefully going to be near water anyway: the change room, a drink bottle, a coffee shop (dirty faces not dirty bottoms!!!).  

The space saved by the Pure Wipes outweighs the extra cost ($10 a year?). The convenience of the already-wet-wipes is a little harder to give up, but if I'm organised enough to always have water with me - and, I live in North Queensland so I should anyway- that shouldn't be an issue.

Excess baggage: my handbag

My handbag is too big and too full and too heavy. I bought a new one just before Christmas, and it’s been annoying me since just after Christmas. 

Once upon a time I used to just carry my wallet, phone and keys in a tiny little bag.  During the semester I would also have a pen and my student diary, but I’d leave them at home during term breaks, and would usually change handbags on weekends.  If I didn't need it while I was out, why bother lugging it around with me! 

When I had my first baby my handbag contained:

• wallet
• phone
• keys
• travel size baby wipes
• one disposable nappy 
• glasses case (I now wear glasses full time and prefer to wear sunglasses when I’m outside, and obviously need prescription sunglasses) 
• pen 
• a muslin wrap which I used as a breastfeeding cover, or a change mat, or a light blanket, or to wipe up spills.  
• when the baby was a bit older I also kept a small container with a couple of biscuits in it, and a drink bottle, and left the wrap out because I didn’t really use it anymore. 

I kept two more spare nappies and a change of clothes in the car, and if I knew I would need more than that I would take it with me. 

But, seeing as somehow in between babies I’ve managed to make my whole life incredibly more complicated, I’ve now ended up with a huge handbag with far too much in it.  Well, I think it is huge.  Apparently it’s not that big.  

In my handbag today I have:

• wallet
• phone
• keys
• glasses case
• small notebook for writing things down when I think of them at the shops
• larger notebook for when I want to do some writing at a coffee shop while Big Boy is at Kindy and if Small Boy is asleep
• a disposable nappy
• a slightly larger travel case of baby wipes (but it is refillable, so I don’t mind too much that it is bigger)
• muslin wrap
• spare clothes for the baby and spare underpants for Big Boy. 
• a folder with crayons and a notebook for Big Boy’s amusement
• a small pencil case containing a pen, lipgloss, lip balm, an emery board, and a tube of Pure Wipes
• A small stack of loyalty cards for various stores all tied up with a rubber band (it means I don’t have them all in my wallet and can have a smaller wallet but still have the loyalty cards)  

My bag is twice as big because I have twice as much stuff in there. I don’t hear my phone ring, and I have trouble finding my keys.  And guess what. I don’t even need it all. I don’t need the Pure Wipes when I’ve got baby wipes anyway: they’re left from when I only had a toilet trained but still messy toddler. I forget about the lip balm because it’s tucked away inside a case, and don’t really use it that often anyway.  I don’t use either notebook enough to warrant carrying them all the time.  I managed without spare clothes in my bag when my first son was a baby, I’m sure I can still manage now. 

Sadly, I spent a lot of money on this bag.  I wanted a nice leather handbag that would see me out five years or more, and had been looking few a weeks weeks at different bags and had narrowed down between two or three bags. I had a 30% off voucher for a particular bag store, and had decided I would get a bag there.   But then I saw this other bag, one that I hadn’t seen before.  It would definitely hold all I needed (or didn’t need, as it turns out), and it was very stylish bag.  It was black, not the red that I was hoping for this time, but it was very nice.  It also cost somewhat more than what I had intended on spending.   But it was ‘perfect’ and i had to have it.  And the kids were getting grumpy and my husband was starting to get that ‘just make a decision’ look in his eyes.   It was an impulse purchase.

It is still a lovely bag.  It’s just too big for me.   I might try selling it and getting something smaller and a little more wieldy.  But first I need to get all the unnecessary junk out of it!

The high chair dilemma

We have a high chair that we used with Big Boy.  Small Boy is almost ready to use a high chair.  The problem is that the high chair has been sitting out in the garage for 3 years and is looking a bit yuck.   A quick Facebook poll yesterday showed most of my friends would bin it and buy a new one.  There is an appropriate one on a good sale this week: simple, easy to clean, $34.

But, waste is still waste, and $34 is still $34.  I'm trying to learn to not buy things just because I want them.

I'm going to use up the last of some generic brand Napisan that doesn't work as well as the real thing and give the chair a scrub, douse it in some vinegar, and leave it in the sun for a couple of hours.  I've got a roll of that sticky book covering plastic that I don't need, and that will make a good cover for the tray - the only bit that food comes into contact before going into bub's mouth.  If I don't think it has come clean enough for my baby to eat from - and let's face it, in a few months he's going to be crawling around on my floor (gasp!) anyway - then I will buy a new one.

My new motto, which I read somewhere on the blogosphere but can't for the life of me remember where, is Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.   I will only buy new things if I genuinely need it and actually have the money for it!   Even high chairs.