Count on Me

First of all, not to mislead you, but the title of this entry is not intended to imply that its contents will be gushy.

And, no – Pumpkin isn’t counting yet either.

It’s actually me that’s been Rainman-ing around with a blur of numbers running through my head since she’s been born. It started out with 6 pounds and some ounces and inches, then we added, and added, and added to that. In addition to those ounces, were the carefully monitored and measured ounces and scoops of her bottles, followed by the calories of food and, again, ounces of milk. Counting all the while.

And everything isn’t just weights and measures – there are also the age numbers – first, the days (1 day old, 4 days old) that turn into weeks (4 weeks old, 6 weeks old) that eventually turn into months (I admit, I currently have no clue how many “weeks” old Pumpkin is) and I hope and pray that one day those months turn into years (if I one day have to explain to someone that I am buying a car for my 192 month old I may lose it).

As if all these numbers I’m trying to remember aren’t enough, the folks over at the kiddy clothing company thought it would be “helpful” to associate kiddy clothes with their age (thank God this, too, ends at some point – I would draw the line at trying on a size 31 skirt). At first glance, you think, what a great idea, so easy for moms, especially those new moms who have no clue what they are doing. And I must admit it wasn’t so bad at first. In fact, at first, there are entire brackets “0-3 months,” “3-6 months,” “6-9 months” and so on. Granted there is some confusion in whether your child is a “3-month” or “3-6 months,” but in the end, you can get pretty close and those onesies are tight anyway so if you’re off a little nobody even notices.

Then you get out of the brackets and into the double digits – 12 months clothes. Now, for our little Pumpkin that came long before 12-months. At about 9-months her Homer Simpson-esque belly was peeking out from under her shirt and her ankles from under her pant legs. So we graduated to 12 months. I had a moment of panic – what comes next??? I had never heard of 13 month or 15 month clothes. Luckily my mommy friends were all there to advise me of the existence of 18 month clothes. Apparently, after one year, clothes change sizes in 6-month increments rather than 3 months. Crisis averted…at least for a few months.

Then it happened, like it always does. Just last week. It started out like a typical Thursday morning. I’m getting Pumpkin ready for school, when I realize that I can’t quite get the snaps to meet on her little pants. I jerk and pull on her little pants, no luck. I pick her up by her pants and try to shimmy her down in them a little further. Lay her down, stand her up. The pants aren’t budging. Then it hit me – she’s growing out of 18-months clothes. No panic this time, my mommy friends had already told me about the 6 month rule, so I plan a shopping outing for that weekend. Feeling confident in my mommy-skin, I enter the mall armed with cash and ready to spend.

Being no stranger to simple addition, I am also armed with the knowledge that I’m in the market for 24 month clothes now (18 + 6 = 24). Also, being adept in converting months to years, I realize that 24 months and 2 years are one in the same. With all of those conversions stored away in my brain, I load my shopping bags.

The first thing we have the opportunity to try on back at the house are her brand new Disney princess pajamas. As I rip them from their packaging and unroll the pants, I get a bad feeling. The pants unroll, and unroll, and unroll. I hold them up to the now-seemingly-tiny Pumpkin on my hip and realize that I could put them on her and pull the waistband almost completely over her head without stretching the legs out. How can this be? Where did I go wrong?

Well, apparently mommy-math isn’t like the math you learned in school. While a 24-month old child is, in fact, 2 years old, a child wearing 24-month clothing cannot, in fact, wear 2T clothing, regardless of whether she is 2 or T. So, for now we still have a nightly tummy peep show and it’s back to the mall for us again, her for 24-month pajamas and me for something that doesn’t require counting quite that high.