Second Hand Kid

Preparing for number 3, after you have had number one, girl, and number two, boy, is easy.  I am not a first time mom chasing my tail wondering what I need, how much I need and do I really need.  I am not having a baby in the middle of the end of the world with barely a stocked Walmart in sight.  Add ontop of that producing a male and wondering what the heck boys like or need.  I am proud to say I think I have this preparing for the baby thing down.  Notice I didn’t say parenting, because that is a whole nother ball of wax, in which I don’t think we ever stop learning. 

However, one question has popped up, lately, how do I handle all these hand me downs?  Sure the baby doesn’t care that the crib she sleeps in once belonged to her sister, or the mountain of clothes she has were once worn by her sister or the toys that she plays with were once played by both her sister and brother.  But what happens when it comes to those gift giving occasions and I can’t stand to bring one more child oriented thing into my overflowing home, so I wrap a toy, that has been hidden in the attic since it was tossed aside by one of the older kids?  Sure the newest member of our family won’t know, until her older sister opens her big mouth and dances around singing how that toy use to be hers.  Will there be a tug a war over said toy, even though the older sister will probably have something new and appropriate for her age, because technically it was hers to begin with?  Oh, you can think with your logical mind that Amber would be the more grown up of the two and not worry about some baby toy that she long tossed aside, but I will remind you, again, kids are not logical.  And trying to deal with them in such a way will only bring you grief and a migraine. 

Sure there will be new things for number 3, but with time she will notice the hand me downs more and one (or just a mother) will wonder if this assures her more time on the therapist couch than the other two?  Nah!!  You see Amber is the first born and will carry much more emotional baggage than her two other siblings, because let’s face it first borns are  the training child.  Sam is the middle child and will have his lack of being center of attention to make sure that he will do all that is in his power to get that attention, which is a bit scary.  Not to mention he will be sandwiched between girls, which I can’t even bring myself to think of the horrors that will bring.  And the last child, oh well, she will be the one that goes in a completely different direction, while her father and I shake our heads and wonder who switched the babies at the hospital.  So I guess this hand me down stuff is just one minor distraction for me, because soon I will have three kids demanding my time, my love and attention.  Hey, maybe I should worry less about their therapist couch time and wonder when I might get a little curled up in the ball time to collect my sanity?

I will say that it has been nice to walk down memory lane, opening bags of clothes I thought I would never seen again or watching Amber help her dad put together her old crib (Side note:  Being horizontally challenged, I am not  happy about this new trend of non-moving crib sides.  So I am more than happy to use Amber’s crib with it’s 1/4 hinged top.  If I could have found one for Sam I would, but at the time the crib people had moved on to something completely different and I was lucky to find an old school one side moves up and down but in a newer model.  Less you think I got some 70’s death trap where a head would get stuck or baby’s first snack was the peeling lead paint.), or dusting off the perfect swing and vibrating chair that Sam used.  A bigger plus, not shelling out tons of money for newer models that are just not the same as the tried and true ones, even if they have probably been deemed death traps by the powers that be, that currently sit in my attic.  Besides, it saves more money for all the asprin I am going to need in the coming years.