Twenty- five Seven

Organising a Baby layette

March 6, 2013
I seem to be one of those ladies who is eternally a lady in waiting.

Waiting for the bai to come

Waiting for the bathroom to get free

Waiting for the kids to get home from school

Waiting for the cake to rise

Waiting for the rain to stop.

No matter what stage of life I am in, I always seem to be playing a waiting game. And it also seems that I’m not the only one playing the waiting game. All of us are playing the game at some stage and in some form.

These days I’m playing a different waiting game – waiting for the baby to be born.

Not mine – of course, my daughter’s.

One of the joys of preparing for a baby is getting the baby’s layette organised. Most hospitals have a list of requirements for the new born and at first glance it is quite intimidating :
- 4 dozen cotton nappies
- 3 towels
- 3 baby wrappers
- 1 dozen baby “gowns” ( for lack of a better word!)
- 1 dozen baby vests
and so the list goes on to include blankets and plastic sheets and baby powder and soap and oil and bonnets and…….. All these garments have to be labelled and washed and kept in readiness with the clothes required for the mother.

So Anna Shetty and I have been scouring the net and the streets of Mumbai looking for appropriate clothes.

The last time I made a baby’s layette was over thirty years ago when Colaba Causeway had a few Textile Mill shops selling fabric by the yard. I remember going to the Bombay Dying shop with my mother and buying beautifully printed cotswool to make baby blankets. We also bought metres fine cotton cloth to make the baby dresses with satin ribbon tie-ups, sheets and baby wrappers.

Today Colaba Causeway doesn’t have a single shop that sells yardage and The Bombay Dying store which is the only Mill shop on the street doesn’t even know what Cotswool is! Gone are the days of making nappies, quilts, sheets and knitting booties: to assemble a baby’s layette these days, only requires knowing where to shop. So we decided to move with the times and go shopping :

Kamdhenu, a multi specialty store at Napean Sea Road closest to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital a popular SoBo maternity option, has the entire range of baby stuff from cribs to prams to “Born Baby Clothes.” ( I’m not joking about that – there really are clothes for born babies). Just Moms and Pritams are two stand alone shops at Breach Candy who also stock baby things and are specially handy for picking up a gift for the newborn. And if you can go through the maze that is Premsons, you will also find baby stuff there on the first floor.

Mama & BeBe near Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan off Chowpatty is ridiculously expensive and has a rickety staircase to the mezzanine where they keep cots and cribs that look distinctly used. When I asked the salesgirl how they expected pregnant women to negotiate the narrow stairs, she gave me a look which translated as ” Can’t pregnant women walk?”

RTI which was once the only place that knew what a layette was is now the only place where you get old fashioned stuff at thoroughly modern prices. This shop too is totally avoidable.

Westside across the road has stuff for newborns who are either going to be living in the Arctic or in an air-conditioned environment where the temperature is maintained at zero degrees. None of the clothes are suitable for a baby born in summer.

So I went down to Nandu Drapers in Girgaon and picked up most of the stuff.

There seem to be lots of stuff happening for babies these days : you can get a whole range of clothes right from the traditional “jhabli” to bodysuits coveralls which were unheard of when we were young. But try asking for a LAYETTE and you will get a blank expression.

But in keeping with the tradition of making something for the baby, Anna Shetty and I made a patchwork crib quilt appliqued yellow ducks and polyfill fibre which I sourced from a mattress shop at Nana’s Chowk. And this evening while walking home through the Parsi General Hospital lane, I came across a tiny mattress shop which sold the polyfill for half the price!

Which brings me to my basic premise in life – I can never win.
Boy Doll, Girl Doll

March 3, 2013

Boy Doll , Girl Doll

“What can I get you?” I asked my little girls as I was preparing to leave for a holiday , my first ever , without them.

“Can I have anything I want?” they asked in unison.

“Of course, anything you want?” said I,slightly scared that they may ask for something impossible.

“I want a picture book,” said the older one

“And I want a baby boy doll,” piped up her little sister.

Christmas lights outside Hamleys London store in 2004. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The words rang in my ears as I went through the doll section at Hamleys, the iconic toy store in London. Here I was, having the dream vacation but miserable every time I saw a child. Like all mothers of toddlers, I yearned for a holiday without having to worry about two little girls tugging at my hand all day long. What I didn’t bargain for was that deep gnawing feeling, that tugging at my heart every time I saw a little girl, a feeling that was intensified when I saw two little girls walking down the road, playing in the park or just looking at a museum exhibit as I was.

My little girls were perfect – sisters who were born just eighteen months apart. With the younger one always trying to copy her elder sister, the girls were like twins, an idea re-enforced by my passion for dressing them up identically. But the girls were as alike as chalk and cheese : the elder one quiet, responsible, lady like and gentle, the little one chatty and bratty. And all through the holiday I remembered my girls and was just dying to get back to them.

I searched all over London for the perfect little boy doll and was told that there aren’t really any “BOY DOLLS”. So finally when I saw the doll section at Hamleys, I was convinced that this was the place where I would find one: and there it was a cute little bald baby,dressed in blue overalls,sleeping blissfully in a wicker basket.

It was really early morning when we arrived home but that did not stop my two little girls from rushing into my arms welcoming me with rib crushing hugs and millions of wet kisses. Amid chattering and hugs we opened our bags and delivered the goodies, thrilled to hear their appreciative oohs and aahs of delights. My little girl was thrilled with her doll and immediately began feeding it with the little milk bottle she found in the basket.

When the doll wee-ed, her sister told her that the clothes needed to be changed and the two girls busied themselves taking off the doll’s clothes. Almost immediately their chatter stopped and I sensed a perceptible disappointment.

“Mama!” they wailed together,” This is not a boy doll. It’s a girl.”

This post is a part of <a title=”Write Over the Weekend” href=”http://blog.blogadda.com/category/write-over-the-weekend-wow” target=”_blank”>Write Over the Weekend</a>, an initiative for <a title=”Reach out to the largest community of Indian Bloggers” href=”http://www.blogadda.com/” target=”_blank”>Indian Bloggers</a> by BlogAdda
Covering the tummy of the yummy mummy

March 3, 2013
English: pregnancy at 8th month (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anna Shetty has been expanding rapidly these past few months and being the concerned mother, I thought I’d help her out with her shrinking wardrobe. Her initial idea was to borrow some of my clothes and for a while I was flattered: after years of being told how awful my clothes were, she was actually willing, nay wanting to get into my shirts???? The joy was only short lived when she found that while the clothes fitted her girth, they were falling off her shoulders leaving her with no option of getting her own.

Shopping for maternity clothes

Now if you are pregnant in Bombay and want to shop for maternity wear – DON’T even try. Most shops don’t have clothes for pregnant women – you are just advised to buy clothes in a larger size. And those shops that do sell maternity clothes have ugly, dull coloured ,shapeless garments that open down the front.

Tailoring a better option?

So I decided to tailor my own maternity clothes for her. After hunting down my old notebook where I’d written down instructions on how to make a draft, I sat down to making a paper pattern relying largely on my wits and my foggy memory. I took out my old sewing machine, cleaned it up and oiled it and laboured over two days to make the perfect maternity outfit. Alas! It was not to be. With a garment that was made to measurements that were neither hers nor mine, it was no surprise when it fitted neither of us.

With my enthusiasm thus dampened, I decided not to waste time and fabric sewing the clothes myself but getting them stitched from the local tailor. Rajesh Tailor who lives down the lane squeezed my order in and gave me four shirts which were reasonably “fashionable”. With stretchable tights worn below Anna Shetty managed quite well till I realised that while these clothes covered her bump, they were most unsuitable for feeding the baby.

This led to a mad scramble to get something organised before the baby was born.

Going back with more fabric to Rajesh was not an option because by now he was not only completely confused with my instructions of making something large but not so large and fitted but not too tight, but completely fed up as well and flatly refused to make any more clothes for me. This left me with no choice but to go down to Navinbhai my tried and trusted tailor of over forty years.

But, I should have known better. Navinbhai is a specialist of sari blouses and at best a Xerox tailor or one who can copy perfectly. Moreover, he is notorious for taking his time and has occasionally delivered the garment just after the event. But I am the eternal optimist and gave him two lengths of beautifully patterned fabric – soft cotton that would be perfect to wear in hospital. I spent ten minutes patiently drawing out the design, explaining how I wanted the lace to be positioned,how the garment should flow gracefully, how the neat opening down the front should not hurt baby and above all dinning into his head the importance of getting the garments ready BEFORE the baby was born.

After two weeks of intense badgering and hounding,Navinhbhai gave me a call informing me that the clothes were ready me and I hot footed it to his shop, pleased as punch that finally I would get the perfect maternity wear. I even imagined setting up a new line of business – Great Expectations: Maternity wear for the Fashionable Mum . I was gob smacked when he held up the garments : there were not two dresses but THREE. Obviously there was a HUGE gap between my concept and his reality because the long flowing knee length dress I had envisaged was now converted into TWO baggy tops that barely covered the bottom !!! When I asked him how he could make two garments out of material meant for one, he just shrugged his shoulders and said ” But there was so much cloth!!!”

Moral of the story : Sari blouse tailors can only make sari blouses and expecting them to do anything else is not great but downright foolish.
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