Maternity Mondays?

Anyone who reads A Cup of Jo knows that Joanna Goddard does a series of posts called Motherhood Mondays.  

Well, in the interest of including updates about baby-related stuff without letting it overwhelm the content of my blog, I've decided to do something similar, at least for the duration of my pregnancy, and relegate all pregnancy posts to one day a week, which shall heretofore be known as Maternity Mondays. ;-)

Of course, anyone who's been reading this blog for any length of time knows that on occasion I will randomly forget/not have time to post for weeks at a time, so this is by no means a guaranteed every-Monday feature.  

One of my biggest budgetary concerns, at least until the Stormageddon makes his or her appearance, was maternity clothes.  I did NOT want to spend a bunch of money on clothing that I'd likely only need for 3-4 months.  Originally I was planning on trying to make it through this thing using belly bands and my already-fairly-extensive collection of dresses and shirts with empire waists and lots of fabric, supplemented by some borrowed pieces from a couple of high school friends.  

Then I went to visit one of my cousins and her new baby girl, and this is what I came home with:

Enough clothing to cover nearly the entire bed, several layers high!

Once I managed to sort through everything and weed out the pieces that wouldn't work (too summery, not my style, too big in the shoulders/bust), I had acquired the following:

• 6 dresses
• 4 skirts
• 6 pairs of pants
• 6 sleeveless tops
• 4 short-sleeved tops
• 4 long-sleeved tops
• 3 sweaters

Not a bad haul, huh?

The dresses are by far my favorites:

 

Because my cousin's baby was born in the end of July, only one of the 6 dresses is long-sleeved, but the material for all the dresses will work just fine for fall and winter when paired with tights and/or a cardigan, which is pretty standard for me during the cooler months anyway.

In addition to all the loaner maternity clothes, my cousin also gave me a bunch of books to borrow.  Among them were these, which I was already debating buying:

 

Now if only she had Let's Panic About Babies! ;-)