Saturday 20 September 2008

Dear new baby...


Dear New Baby Sarah Madeline,

Please find enclosed “Baby Jacket To Fit 0-3 Months”.

I dunno, little dude. It looks awfully wee to me. I mean, I know you’re pretty new and everything, and I understand that people your age are usually on the small side. But I’m not convinced. Now I’ve finished making it, it seems to me this would fit a relatively well-built guinea-pig.

In 15 years’ time, your mum will be sorting through a houseful of crap and she’ll come across all the tiny things you wore right now, and will marvel at how someone so little and perfect morphed into this thing that tramples her dreams and hates her and leaves hair straighteners about the house on a daily basis. I just want you to pass on a note to her, that when she pulls out this jacket, she can reassure herself that you actually probably never were small enough to fit into it.

Still and all. I haven’t had a lot to do with people like you, so maybe it’ll work out all right. I mean, I do know one incontrovertible fact – that whatever age you are when this thing fits you, it will only continue to fit you for approximately two weeks. You guys grow fast.

It’s a good thing, because another thing you need to know is that your mother is firmly against dressing you in any sort of pastel, baby-coloured garments. The trouble is, the kind of wool they make in those colours is specially made to be thrown in the washing machine on numerous baby-vomit occasions and survive. Once you move away from baby-related colours, the type of wool that will still kiss your baby-skin with the softness of a thousand fairywings is mostly also the type of wool that has to be handwashed.

I know! No parents of a weeks-old baby will have the time or presence of mind to do that, right?

So what I suggest is, wear this for the one week you’re still tiny enough to fit into it, puke on it, and then instruct your parents to throw it away immediately. It’s the best solution for all of us.

Welcome to the world, kiddo. We’re glad you could join us.

Love, A.

3 comments:

Allison Fairbairn said...

Amber, thank you so much!! We just received it, and it will definitely fit her. I think it's the perfect jacket for literary readings or smoking cigars.

Formal thanks to follow.

Amber said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amber said...

If you so much as put actual pen to actual paper, or pretty card, or whatever, and spend even a minute writing any 'official' expression of thanks for this, so help me, I will be forced to come over there and beat you both (that is you and SS, not you and your wee one) on the heads with a large heavy object. Spend the time you would have spent on writing me a thankyou doing something more interesting.

My mail gets from here to NZ faster than it gets to Saskatchewan. I am pleased it arrived before she started college.

Sorry I forgot to include the pipe and tobacco with it. She will have to practise patting her pockets looking for her tobacco pouch and ruminating on how she remembers when she were a lass, all this was just fields.