There's a perfectly good knife

Went on my first hike today since pre-pregnancy.  It felt good, and I don’t think I overdid it.  Which tells me I’m probably in better shape than I thought I was – indeed, climbing the three flights of stairs to my house several times a day, although a bit tedious, is probably helping me out more than I realized.  Work out?  Who needs to work out?

Went with a friend who confessed to me that she’d just had another miscarriage – probably about her fourth in as many years.  She is 43 now and was shocked that she got pregnant at all.  But if you have lots of unprotected sex with your husband and don’t have fertility issues you’re bound to pop up pregnant now and again even at her age; and keeping the baby apparently is the problem.  She has an odd approach to this stuff that I don’t entirely understand.  She has a lot of issues with doctors and hospitals and has a sort of “everyone’s out to get me” approach to life, and so is opposed to a) fertility treatments of any kind, even progesterone to help support the pregnancy, and b) can’t seem to just tell her husband she’s done having babies.  I think like a lot of marriages, she goes through the motions of “trying” just to keep him happy (because he wants a second kid and is opposed to adoption), but lets herself miscarry over and over because deep down she just doesn’t really want a second baby.  It’s a very odd circumstance and one that’s puzzled me over the years.  But I know a lot of marriages with that sort of weird dance going on – one wants kids, the other doesn’t, and they both just smile and pretend everything’s ok – so who knows what goes on with these people?  No matter what it’s a tricky issue unless you both want two kids and then go on to have two kids with no problems.  Anything else and it gets contentious.  Yet another reason I’m glad only I get to make these decisions for myself!

She had told me she had some baby things for me…and much to my dismay she brought over giant tubs of huge plastic toys that aren’t usable until my son is about four or five years old, clothes for about that age, and a giant hiking backpack that’s about the size of my giant baby pram that also can’t be used for at least two years.  I rather sheepishly had to tell her that I have no space to store all these things for five years; I thought she’d bring over a lightweight baby stroller she’d mentioned and newborn clothes and toys and things like that, not huge things for an older child.  Honestly I didn’t want any of it.  I think she was pretty annoyed with me – she said she thought I had a big storage shed (I do, but it’s not sealed and is filthy and full wild animal poop; I have no intention of ever storing any baby stuff out there) – but I was pretty annoyed with her for dumping all this crap on me that can’t be used for five years.  I showed her the one small storage cabinet I have for all his stuff, and she sort of scoffed and said I’d better buy a storage shed.  Now, she could be on to something there, and I’m not 100% opposed to the idea.  But you know what?  I also don’t agree with keeping piles of useless shit around, and having so many mountains of giant plastic toys that your kid could never play with in a lifetime, either.  I’ve been to her house, and it’s a mountain of plastic toys strewn all over the place.  I have no intention of living like that, and I personally don’t think that’s necessary, either.  I didn’t have mountains of toys when I was a kid, nor was our house strewn.  My tactic is if it doesn’t fit in the cabinet I have then we can’t keep it.  Is that wrong?  Maybe I’ll eat these words later.  And my kid will have lots of toys to keep him educated and entertained.  But mountains?  I don’t know about that.

I feel my grandmother’s Depression practicality seeping in.  When we were kids we spent most holidays at their house in rural Connecticut, and always pitched in to help with the food preparation.  When it came time to peel the potatoes my sister and I would ask, “don’t you have a potato peeler?” and the answer always was, “there’s a perfectly good knife.”  So now whenever either of us contemplates something we don’t need, we think of that phrase.  So far the “there’s a perfectly good knife” has been my approach to baby and kid gear, which has made registering for things particularly challenging and my approach towards “things” in general pretty agonizing, as I’ve repeatedly posted about.  I’ll tell you what my hope is.  My hope is that I get a bunch of crap and get all set up, and then once the baby is here realize I kind of don’t need about 80% of it and get rid of nearly all of it.  I mean, I’m his food source (hopefully), we’re cloth diapering, he has a place to sleep and clothes to keep him warm and a way to be ported around town and a few things to stimulate his brain.  Beyond that…?  Beyond that I think there’s a perfectly good knife.