Gender Neutral

Not knowing if this baby is a boy or a girl is somewhat romantic, but entirely impractical when it’s your second and you are surrounded by boys stuff that you would like to know definitively what to do with.

I have many generous friends and relatives who have given me their baby clothes – some who have had girls, some who have had boys. The end result is a room full of bins that are gender specific. It’s hard to sort through them all and not get them mixed up while simultaneously trying to find one or two gender neutral newborn sleepers. Seems the newborn age is the one you are most likely to have either a pink or a blue sleeper for (according to the clothing bins). I am happy to pack a few of both but thought the other day how nice it would be to have a few yellow or green ones. Just because.

A few days ago, my wish was granted, as I wandered through Joe Fresh in our local Loblaws store. I couldn’t believe it but at the very front of the sales rack was an orange and brown newborn sleeper for $1.20. At first glance, it was definitely not the MOST attractive sleeper, but DEFINITELY didn’t fall into the pink or blue category. And how can you go wrong with a $1.20 price tag?

So I scooped it up and grinned proudly to myself.

About 10 minutes later as my groceries were being beeped through, I was presented with the opportunity to actually LOOK at the sleeper I’d so hastily scooped up. I believe, actually, it was the cashier’s somewhat skeptical comment, “Oh my, how…UNUSUAL…” that caught my attention.

The little white sleeper may have been gender neutral with its oragne and Brown print, but the fact that it was covered in skulls and crosses, orange spiders and brown mummies did give it a bit of a creepy look. No wonder it was $1.20; we’re about as far from Halloween as we get in the calendar year.

I decided to buy the sleeper anyways. So what if my newborn sports a Halloween sleeper with creepy skulls on it. People won’t judge me, will they?