The mystery revealed
It's been an exhausting few days - we've been out of state and back, to a concert and back, and I co-ran a daylong seminar 70 miles away today - but I wanted to update you on the grandmama drama. (Thanks for all your support, btw.) I finally spoke with my mom on Saturday morning, and here's what she's upset about: She has not bought anything for the baby because she worries when she picks something up that we won't like it, so she puts it back instead. And that was it.
Talk about anticlimactic. The funny thing is, this is one of the topics D and I had guessed might be bothering our moms. And, as I told my mom the other day, we are picky about stuff -- especially when it comes to the big stuff, like furniture for our home, or the safety-related items. But she has been nervous about buying clothes and toys... which completely baffles me. At the moment, every single piece of clothing we own for this little girl has been a gift; a good chunk of it has come from complete strangers (via Freecycle). So I was a little baffled about the perception that I am being picky about this stuff.
It turns out, though, that my mom totally misinterpreted something I'd said in passing, which was that we don't need newborn clothes. That is, in fact, true -- the child will not want for things to wear for the first several months of our life. Does that I mean I forbid my mother from buying some frilly little dresses? Absolutely not. It's just that some friends were pressing us on what we still needed for shower gifts -- they wanted to be sure that they were buying something useful that wouldn't be overkill.
And speaking of overkill... that's what this whole situation has turned out to be. I still haven't talked to D's mom; she's out of town from now through Saturday, so we're hoping to catch up with her on Sunday. She's already said once that whatever my mom said goes for her, too. I suspect the truth is a bit more complicated than that, but we'll see what happens when we talk this weekend.
The thing that kills me about all of this: theoretically, I'm the hormonal one.
Talk about anticlimactic. The funny thing is, this is one of the topics D and I had guessed might be bothering our moms. And, as I told my mom the other day, we are picky about stuff -- especially when it comes to the big stuff, like furniture for our home, or the safety-related items. But she has been nervous about buying clothes and toys... which completely baffles me. At the moment, every single piece of clothing we own for this little girl has been a gift; a good chunk of it has come from complete strangers (via Freecycle). So I was a little baffled about the perception that I am being picky about this stuff.
It turns out, though, that my mom totally misinterpreted something I'd said in passing, which was that we don't need newborn clothes. That is, in fact, true -- the child will not want for things to wear for the first several months of our life. Does that I mean I forbid my mother from buying some frilly little dresses? Absolutely not. It's just that some friends were pressing us on what we still needed for shower gifts -- they wanted to be sure that they were buying something useful that wouldn't be overkill.
And speaking of overkill... that's what this whole situation has turned out to be. I still haven't talked to D's mom; she's out of town from now through Saturday, so we're hoping to catch up with her on Sunday. She's already said once that whatever my mom said goes for her, too. I suspect the truth is a bit more complicated than that, but we'll see what happens when we talk this weekend.
The thing that kills me about all of this: theoretically, I'm the hormonal one.
posted by mc at 5:28 PM
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