So here's the thing. I have spent, oh, maybe a grand total of $200 on clothing for my three children over the past 5 years. This is not much. I have been so lucky with the hand-me-downs and so fortunate with the gifts.

So now with one boy and one girl later, despite this pittance I have spent on clothing, I have no less than 13 large rubbermaid storage bins full of clothing. Girls 3-6, boys 9-12, etc. etc. This is really ridiculous.
Here's the other thing. I live in this 100 year old farmhouse. We have no attic, essentially no closets (there are 3 just big enough for some hangers) and a basement with a 5 foot, 6 inch ceiling (ho ho! I am 5'5"!!) that gets lots of puddles in it when the weather's wet because the floor is partially dirt and the walls are raw bedrock in places. Thanks to my illustrious husband we now have some big, sturdy plywood shelves that hold our rubbermaids up off the floor, and a pump for our dehumidifier, which runs constantly. So I can actually keep the rubbermaids here.

I just spent 2 hours sorting through each and every bin, looking at all the cute, puke-stained infant clothes, the thin-kneed crawly clothes, in hopes that I would say to some, eew! Yuck! I would never put another child in THIS.

But they are too much part of my babies. I can't get rid of them yet. Also some of the clothes were gifts to Charlotte before she was born. I can't throw those out. It makes me slightly nauseous to be nostalgic about such troves of clothing but somehow I just am. Plus, who knows what might come in the future? I am everly aware that half the bins might never be opened again, depending on the sex and number of future children. But one never does know.

So my evening in the basement, lugging the rubbermaids up and down the steep, rustic staircase (which has an old pulling oar for a banister) rendered nothing but re-organized rubbermaids, still 13 of them, and thoughts of one day putting another little wiggly child into the clothes that no longer fit the current brood.

Isn't it so fascinating that you can just keep making kids and each one comes out different, equally adorable, and just as adored? I just can't get over this, and it's what makes me so excited to make another baby some day. Sometimes I even have these crazy thoughts to myself each month that I am not trying to get pregnant, about the little, unused egg that is floating through me, and what kind of half-child it might have created. How strange that theoretically, at 31, I could feasibly produce 8 or 9 more children. Each child would be different, would surprise me, would kind of look like the other ones, and I would love him or her immeasurably. It's too bad that I don't have the resources, and by this I am referring to my personhood, not my finances, to really care for that many kids because it would be pretty cool to just keep on going and see what you could make. But I do look forward to seeing what life's most grand experiment brings to me next time. One never knows.

I also keep wondering what it will be like for me to be pregnant for the FOURTH time, having had two live births in between. I have had lots of friends have miscarriages lately and so I keep feeling pretty vulnerable in that respect, knowing that my luck three times over might make me more of a risk for this time around. But let's hope.

Aoife has been such a trip lately. She has been getting very cross with me when I won't nurse her when she feels like it. I am slightly trying to limit her to at home, cozy-location nursing. Basically this means you can't just do it when you feel like it. When you wake up, when you're sleepy for your nap, before bed, and maybe a sneak before dinner. But I really have to get her off the any-time-you-want buffet because she's getting pretty brassy about it. Today she got mad at me. "I'm cross!" she shouted. "I'm frusterated!" And so I tried to distract her, offering books, and a doll to play with. "No way!" She screamed."No Maam!" Of course at this I have to start laughing hysterically so I am forced to leave the room for a little while. I have no idea where she learned to say No Maam. I do feel a little bad depriving her of her favorite thing, but on the other hand, I have recognized in Liam and in her the benefits of having other coping mechanisms other than a breast, particularly at the age of 2. It is time. And so I will have to laugh my way through many a tantrum, I am sure. It's good to have some spice in your personality, right?