Sweet Madeleine

Brass Tacks

                                     8x10 Print by PixelCloud on Etsy

It took Adam and I a long time to decide to have a baby. I mean, we always knew we wanted children, but making the choice to actually DO it was hard, really hard.

I am the most indecisive person ever. And I over think everything. Needless to say, choosing to bring a child into this world, our world, wasn’t something I took lightly and initially, (as is the case with many people, I suspect) we were waiting for the “right” time.

What would this mythical state, this perfect conflagration of factors look like? Well, I figured we would have to sell Adam’s business. We would also have to own our own home, naturally. And of course we would have to have moved close by my mom because I couldn’t fathom becoming a mother myself without having my own mother an arms reach away.

We would have to have all our debts paid off, with money in the bank, and finally, we would have had to have travelled the world to our hearts content, checked off all of our must-see people and places before making this most monumental of decisions to Settle Down.

At the time, when I thought about this list, it seemed rational. Logical. It seemed like the smart thing to do- get everything tidily squared away, wrap up all of the loose ends on one chapter of our lives before embarking on the next.

It complicated matters that we couldn’t just accidentally “get pregnant”. One of the medications I take for my kidney condition is incompatible with pregnancy, and my nephrologist advised me that I would have to stop taking it at least two months prior to conception in order for all traces to be out of my system, lest our child be born a horrifying mutant.

Somehow this made it even more important that all of the above conditions be met-  if we had to plan it, it better be perfect, right?

But as time went on, I began to realize that this list, this checklist of Conditions That Must Be Met Before Bringing A Child Into The World, was completely unrealistic. It was never going to happen. And if it did it wouldn’t be for five or ten more years and what were we doing in the meantime?

Waiting. Just waiting for that perfect storm.

So instead of continuing to wait, I did an uncharacteristic thing for me, I decided we just needed to jump in feet first and make it work. And so far (fingers crossed) it has.

We didn’t sell Adam’s business exactly, but it did change hands and the situation has resolved itself in a way that has benefited everyone.

We don’t own a home, but we have managed to save a decent amount that will enable us to do this sometime in the future. 

We haven’t moved, we don’t live any closer to my mom. But there are boats and cars and buses for a reason, right? And there’s nothing stopping a move like this from happening somewhere down the road.

We don’t have debt, not personally anyway. Our car is paid off, credit cards carry zero balance. And most months we do have money in the bank after everything is accounted for (until I start looking around on Etsy anyway ;)

And finally, we didn’t travel much, not as much as I wanted to, but we went to Hawaii, Mexico, Calgary and a million other smallish trips here and there. I don’t regret a thing.

This miles-long preamble is to present you with the following list, which is a compendium of what we have spent since finding out I was pregnant. I kept track of this because the dollars and cents of having a baby was always one of those things I worried about prior to conceiving - how much would it all cost?

In addition to all of the circumstantial factors, I also worried about financial ones - how could I not? I wanted to be able to take a year off to be with the baby - would we be able to afford to live on one income? And what about all of the STUFF babies seemed to need? 

Over the last eight months I’ve come to view baby stuff in the same way I viewed wedding stuff - there’s a lot of hype, you don’t need half of it and the moment the word “wedding” or “baby” is slapped on something, suddenly you find yourself paying two or three times as much for something you’ll only use for a short period of time.

With this in mind, and because I try and make eco-friendly choices whenever possible, we made the decision early on to buy secondhand wherever possible.

For some things (like a crib mattress, or nursing bras) buying secondhand wasn’t an option I even entertained, in others (like the carseat) Adam and I disagreed about whether to buy new or not, but in most scenarios it worked out incredibly well and we sometimes ended up finding things for less than 10% of what they would cost new, as well as doing a small part to stop the consumer waste cycle by giving perfectly good baby stuff another go round.

So, BEHOLD! How much it might cost to ready your life for an adorably tiny screaming creature if you are cheap, or a hippie, or both: 

Items Purchased New

Organic Crib Mattress:  $270.00
Sheets x2:                   $13.00
Maternity Clothes:        $50.00
Not-A-Nursery Decor:   $35.00
Belly creams:               $100.00
Nursing pads (Etsy):     $20.00
Change pad cover:       $10.00
Wet Bags x2 (Etsy):     $50.00 
Car detailing:               $135

Items Purchased Used

Crib:                          $50.00
Peg Perego Carseat:    $120.00
Carseat infant insert:   $5.00
Cloth Diapers:             $180.00
Baby Clothing:            $200.00
Change pad:               $10.00
Dresser & Re-do:         $100.00
10 Receiving blankets: $5.00
Swaddles x2:              $8.00
Ergo carrier:               $75.00

Gifted Items From Family/Friends

Magical vibrating/rocking baby chair, cloth diapers, bassinet, rocking chair, Not-A-Nursery wall art, diaper bag, misc. clothes/toys/adorable knitted things.

Misc. : $150 

(this category is here for things I’ve forgotten to record - I tried to be pretty good at keeping track of purchases, but I’d rather over-estimate than under, so I added $150 to be safe)

Grand Total: $1596.00

I’m pretty happy with this amount. To be honest, I always thought it would cost like multiple thousands of dollars to baby up your life - and it’s probably very easy to come close if you’re buying $500 cribs and brand new onesies at twenty bucks a pop. And to be honest, there’s plenty of indulgences in my list that I could’ve done without if I was on a tight budget or wanting to cut down even more (e.g. Car detailing, ridiculously expensive organic belly butters, organic crib mattress rather than normal one etc).

So, lesson learned, with a little effort baby stuff can come cheap!

If you want to buy secondhand, Craigslist is your best friend, as are local Baby Buy and Sell groups on Facebook. Between these two resources I was able to find all of what we needed in great used condition, and it was also a really good way to meet other moms and find out what worked for them, get recommendations on baby services in town etc.

Now you know my life! Questions? Comments? How much did you spend for baby? Am I missing anything?

Wanting

                                   Greed by ImpulsiveCreativity on Etsy

So a while ago I talked about how I was going to go see a man about a couch.I did, in fact, go see a man about a couch. And the man was gorgeous and if the visit had been about vetting him as a suitable mate for any of my available sisters or best friends, everything would have gone swimmingly and we would have received gold stars and A+’s all the way around and I would have treated myself to a mojito afterwards, toasting my own ingenuity.

But of course the visit was not about the man, but the couch. A couch which was too small and chunky, strangely smaller and chunkier than pictured. So there were no gold stars or A+’s and we drove back home.

Then last weekend, another couch beckoned from the seedy pages of craigslist, otherwise packed with red vinyl and sad schlumpy black.

This time a ridiculously inexpensive, caramel coloured beauty, clean lined with chrome legs and a chaise - a CHAISE! Oh the reading and leg extending and curling and cuddling that would be had on that chaise!

It was a hard sell to convince Adam to take his day off to drive an hour in his huge truck to go see this thing. In order to do so I had to all but guarantee that we would be bringing it back with us. And, indeed, I thought we would. I had done all my homework, asked for pictures of any scratches or stains and the photos sent indicated minimal wear and tear - what they showed in fact, was a nice, worn look that was appealing to me.

But. BUT! When we arrived and went inside the teeny tiny apartment (seriously, just one room juggling the multiple hats of kitchenlivingroomdiningroombedroom. Our house for a moment seemed spacious and airy by comparison) the couch stood in pieces, all of the cushions taken off and piled in the corner. Adam immediately set to work re-assembling the couch as I made pleasant chitchat with the seller.

And as the cushions came together it was like a monstrous puzzle began to take shape in front of our very eyes. Stains, weird dark blotches, oily smudges where your head would rest. We all stared at it, this gorgeous creature turned Frankenstein, and the seller offered helpfully, “Those will probably come out with a bit of leather cleaner.”

We did not get the couch.

Adam was surprisingly good-natured about the whole thing. Far more-so than I would have been in the same situation.

And as we drove home with the radio blaring and Gus’ heavy head resting in my lap I kept thinking of that quote I posted a while ago by Chuck Palahniuk:

Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.

Those words rang in my head - true! Oh god, so embarrassing piercingly accurately TRUE - and I decided I was done. No more couches. No more driving. No more meeting strange men and lurking on Craigslist.

Because where does it end, this wanting? And what does it mean to be happy with what you have? And five years ago I wanted the couch we have now. Lobbied for it, saved up for it, ecstatically watched as Adam single-handedly heaved it up four flights of stairs because it wouldn’t fit in the elevator of our old condo.

I was thinking the other day how lucky we are. I struggle with this sentiment because in the conventional, financial sense of this word we are not at all, (lucky I mean). We make next to nothing, spend even less. We save, we always try to save, but with Gus and food and rent there isn’t always much left over.

But where the luck comes in, or the good fortune or the karma or the blessing, however you choose to phrase it, is that we are happy. Not extravagantly so, there’s nothing mind blowing here, no fireworks or parades, but we genuinely enjoy each other’s company and the shape and rhythm of this small live we’ve built.

Some days I feel like we are living this sweet fairy tale existence that you only really hear about from your grandparents anymore, “We lived in this tiny house that didn’t even have room for a table to eat at. We had a huge dog that ate more than we did and we didn’t have cable and I made my own laundry detergent and although we didn’t have debt,  we didn’t have anything else either! But oh- Oh! We were happy.”

Sometimes it seems like you can’t have both, money and happiness. And sometimes (perhaps this is just a way to justify this imbalance, explain it, create a salve for my full heart and empty wallet) sometimes one seems to preclude the other.

Is it true? Does money create unhappiness? Does money create wanting? Does having very little mean you become happier with what you have if you can just let that wanting go?

And since we have now become accustomed to being happy with so very little, what will happen if we ever have more?

Crunch Time

Yesterday was kind of a big day. A big day in that I stood in front of a cash register manned by an alarmingly sweet old woman and spent $351 of my own hard-earned money. And then I willingly drove to another store and stood in front of another cash register and spent another $120. 

Guys I wasn’t even buying anything awesome like Frye boots or a plane ticket to Bora Bora or a sex swing - I WAS BUYING WOOL. Like all of my fellow octogenarians.

I don’t know how adept you are at math, but that’s a total of $471.

471 Dollars! On wool! I can’t remember the last time I spent $500 on anything. It might not be alot of money to, say, a Kardashian, but it’s a lot of money to me and as we drove home with a trunk full of soft, brightly coloured yarn, I felt nauseous, like I had just committed a crime.

This blogging gig doesn’t pay much (read: anything) and I work for social services. What I am trying to tell you is that I’m not a rich lady. By any means. The giant 170lb animal we have to feed, house, and entertain doesn’t help either (and then there’s Gus! Hardy har har). So seeing all those digits and knowing that they don’t exist in my bank account anymore, it hurts.

I have this market coming up you see, and I make stuff, stuff like chunky neck cowls and toques. And last year I did this same market and it was amazing and I had line-ups and I sold out and so this year I decided I would go big. But I didn’t start going big until 19 days before the market.

I have 19 days to knit $500 worth of wool.

Commence panic.

I’m not a businesswoman by any means (two points if you just imagined a woman in a power suit and shoulderpads) but I know you sometimes have to spent money to make money, especially if you’re spending the money on raw materials that you can then turn around and, through your own labour and creativity, sell for double what you bought them. But still. $500! UGH.

I grew up in a house with six kids. We weren’t poor, but when there’s 8 people scrapping for resources, there’s never a surplus, pennies are pinched, you are told “no” a lot. There was definitely never more than enough. I think this was a good thing, it’s good to know that some resources, like money, are finite, but we always knew that other resources, like love, were not (awww!). As such, my attitude towards money can best be summed up by OHMGOD SAVESAVESAVE. At all times. In all places. What if?!

I hate risk. So much so that when we transferred all of our savings to mutual funds with our brother-in-law and our first report showed a $8 loss I was all like “SELL! Or whatever! GET IT OUT!”. Adam had to talk me down from withdrawing everything and transferring it to under my mattress. In my mind that was eight dollars I could have saved! Or spent on salsa con queso! Or WOOL!

So as we drove home yesterday, all I could think was how much I could lose.  “What if I don’t sell anything? What if I can’t knit it all in time? What if no one likes my stuff and then I’ve paid for a table and all the wool and I show up naked and fail the test and they all laugh at me?!”

And then I sat down in front of five consecutive episodes of How I Met Your Mother and I knit 4 neck cowls and 4 toques. If I can keep up this pace (I can not keep up this pace) I may be able to do it. Maybe.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that until Nov 28, posting will be lighter than usual because I will be busily spinning wool rather than words. I wish I could somehow do both, but short of live-blogging me sitting in a TV-coma, knitting for hours on end, wearing an adult diaper to avoid bathroom breaks I don’t see that happening.

Wish me luck!