Soften (and Brighten) my World

I went Christmas shopping today - I'm trying to get most of it done before the baby is born, as I suspect there won't be much time afterwards. I didn't actually manage to find much, but I never do first time out.

However, as a by-product of the Christmas shopping, I continued my long-running search for soft baby socks. We have been given loads of clothes by people who have had children, but socks are the one thing we are short of. Personally, I prefer to be barefoot, and certainly wouldn't go down the pram-shoes/crawlers route, but being practical, this baby is going to be born in the depths of winter, and probably will need some form of sock to keep warm.

I have got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about things being soft and lovely next to the baby's skin - it's part sentimental, I admit, but part practical; Broken Man and I both have allergies, and I can't help thinking soft against delicate skin must be better than crunchy. So began the hunt for soft socks. I can't find any anywhere - maybe cotton does soften up after a few washes, but what if it doesn't? The terry towelling ones start off *really* hard and quite horrible. I found some today which were velour, and thought that, at last, my search was over - but, no, the insides were terry.

Broken Man has some gloriously soft bamboo socks, but I can't find any for babies. I was given some lovely "feather-feel" socks for Christmas last year which would be perfect - but they don't make them for babies.

I was getting very confused. I now have sleepsuits and babygrows in fluffy fleece, buttery organic cotton, silky soft velour and the most amazing furry material, so what's the problem with socks? I had a revelation when I got home and started hanging out some latest batch of baby clothes I had washed. Some of them were inside out, and I realised that (with the exception of the organic cotton) the insides felt nothing like the outside!

The whole thing is a vicious marketing scam. The shops know that we want our babies to feel soft and lovely, and they have made the outsides of their garments wonderfully tactile - without a thought for the baby inside them. It's purely for the benefit of the adult!

It's the same with colour. I know that babies don't really see colour very effectively - I believe they can see black, white and red, but I'm sure that someone will correct me if I'm wrong, so why are all baby clothes (as Broken Man puts it) "offensively pastel"?

I thought perhaps it was the choice of the lovely people who gave us the clothes, so I thought we might treat ourselves to one set of clothes in some nice bright shades that *we* like (as the baby clearly won't have a preferance!). Perhaps some nice bright purples, reds, turquoise....

Again it appears that the shops have decided that people like to see babies in pastels (or white), and the only places you can buy bright baby clothes are from designer and specialist websites, where you could happily pay upwards of £20 for one babygrow. My sister has swapped her designer handbag obsession for a designer babygrow obsession and has very kindly bought us a few - but I object to anyone wasting so much money on something the baby will wear for maybe a month!

I think I will start dying my own - I'm not going to be dictated to by Mothercare! :) And on the sock front, my lovely mother-in-law foolishly offered to knit some things for the baby, so I have bought some feather-feel "wool" and will be setting her to work!

Broken Man's Wife