Email dated August 5, 2012 (two days before going into labor)

sent to my very dear friends Jenjen and Mayumi:

I am, at this moment, literally SURROUNDED by teeny-tiny clothes. This is a serious dose of reality. This is more laundry than I do for myself in, like, six months. This is a giant puzzle: why do clothes labeled "3-6
months" look sometimes the same size as newborn clothes and sometimes the same as clothes for nine-month-olds? For that matter, why are newborn clothes a separate thing from 0-3 month clothes? How do I figure out how many of these from each stage to keep? Everyone says you can't have too many onesies, but there has to be a
limit, right? What about hats, how many hats does a baby need? Does a baby need a balaclava? I don't know! I
have a baby coming any minute now and I don't understand anything about his wardrobe and clothes are, like, my thing.

I am in over my head. Almost literally, the way these clothing piles are growing.

Halp.

Love,
Relle

A little over four months in to the parenting experience, I'm a lot (a LOT!) calmer about the whole infant-wardrobe gestalt. Turned out to be quite a bit simpler once there was an actual small person to dress. And as it turns out, a baby DOES need a balaclava--or at least, as Kamal proved today, it comes in really handy on a long walk with a lovely friend on a very chilly day.