Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Things like this make it so hard...

I have a goal: to buy as few new baby things as possible. There are several reasons for this -rapidly expanding landfills, the off-gassing of new plastic (that nasty, chemical smell that new mattresses have? That's "off-gassing" and it's not, not, not good), the obvious financial incentives - but mostly, buying tons of new stuff for a kid who's going to outgrow it in days feels like a waste. And while my plan is to scour Craigslist and Urbanbaby for gently used big-ticket items (stroller, glider), I can't help wishing for some nice, suburban garage sales. I mean New York has many wonders - great shopping, fantastic theater, seven different thai restaurants within a block of my house - they do not have the one thing I need: a children's resale shop. This city has a squillion rich folks running around and what do they all have in common? Offspring. Every day I watch well-coiffed munchkins trolling around the 96th Street playground in their Prada baby jeans (excuse me, "baby denim") and D&G sneaks. Those miniature Burberry raincoats can't fit forever, right? What do they do with all of it? I mean, that stuff has to end up somewhere...

(Psst, Prada-toting toddlers. Hand 'em over.)

And while you're handing 'em over, would'ya hand me this too?

2 comments:

Woman with a Hatchet said...

See if you can find any local Mom's Groups (Twin's groups will have double your shopping pleasure!). If they're organized enough, they may have once or twice yearly sales of outgrown items. Which, in your location, should be the total jackpot for high end clothing and gear.

What about Thrift Stores? The well-to-do might just give away gear to local charities, now you just have to hunt them down!

Missy said...

If you were here I would throw you a big 'ol Midwestern Style Baby Shower. But alas....

I am kind of kicking myself because we just had one of those garage sales, and we sold some of the big tickety stuff. Now that it is gone of course I have the idea that we could have shipped some of that stuff over to you. The only cool baby item I have left is a combination playpen/co-sleeper. The co-sleeper was awesome. It attaches to your bed and you can still have all the benefits of co-sleeping without worrying that you are going to squash the possum because they have their own little space. It also converts to a playpen when you don't need the co-sleeper part. Let me know if you wanna borrow and we can look in to shipping it out.