Must. Purchase. Pink. Crib. Bumper.

So far during this pregnancy, I've been pretty sane about the shopping thing. And I mean specifically, shopping for The Joey.

Some of it is superstition. In Judaism, it's considered bad luck to buy things for the baby before it's born. Even thinking about such things would have caused my ancestors back in the old country to spit "ptoo! ptoo! ptoo!" and throw salt over their shoulder, in an effort to ward off the evil eye or whatever. So it's cool to buy things for the mom, but it's tempting fate to load the baby up with too much stuff before it's born.

Because this isn't entirely practical -- I wasn't going to wait to shop for a crib until I was on my way home from the hospital with Zeke -- I try to appease the superstitious side of me by limiting purchases to the barest of necessities before the baby is born. (Unless the opportunity presents itself to load up on tons of baby gear for an insanely low price, of course. My mother gets around the problem by just buying the stuff but not giving it to the baby until after it's born.)

And plus, this time around, I already have tons of shit. Even after culling out the stuff that has spit-up stains or that was overtly boys' stuff -- onesies covered with "Daddy's Little Quarterback" or similar -- I have mountains and mountains of clothes, blankets, crib sheets and towels. Not to mention a crib, a little infant bathtub, rattles, teething rings, etc. etc.

My mother, who loves shopping for baby stuff, kept insisting that The Joey needed new stuff that was just for her.

"All babies like having new things!"

But I maintained that babies don't care. They just want to be held and to be warm and fed. They don't give a shit if the PJs they're sleeping in are 5-year-old hand-me-downs purchased from the the "irregulars" bin at the Carter's outlet.

I wasn't trying to be churlish or to kill anyone's buzz. I said, "if you want to buy her new things, I think that's lovely. Get her anything you'd like to see her in. But she doesn't really need anything new."

But with less than 8 weeks to go,* the hormones are taking over. All of a sudden I have overwhelming urges to buy cutesy, girly stuff.

This past weekend, my friend Elizabeth was visiting with her husband and her 5-month-old baby, Elliot. Kathleen and I went to Target before their arrival because I wanted to get some new pillows to put on the guest bed.

As I walked past the baby supply section, I grabbed a really cute little bouncy seat. It was beyond my control.

"It's for Elliot," I thought. "They're probably not traveling with one, and it will be useful if they want to put him down someplace other than the floor."

Riiiiiight.

The fact that a bouncy seat is the one piece of gear I don't have had nothing to do with it.

And then I thought, "Zeke's crib sheets are getting a little tired. I'll get a new one for Elliot to sleep on."

What color did I pick out?

Pink, of course.

Today I started fixating on other bedding. Now mind you, the crib stuff I have that Zeke used is in perfectly good condition. It's not particularly masculine. It would look just fine in a baby girl's bed.

But I've got the sickness.

I e-mailed my mother. "I want to buy some crib bedding for [The Joey], but I don't want to duplicate your efforts, so I wanted to make sure you haven't gotten her any bedding."

She called within 5.7 seconds. "Let's look at some websites."

So we went online and found some really cute stuff that isn't even particularly girly. It's just new. It's all quilt-y and soft and covered with elephants and lions and sweet-looking jungle animals. When I think about having a new little peanut and putting her in her crib with her soft new pink sheets and her new little soft blankie, I just about melt.

Oh, I've drunk the Kool-Aid, I have.

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*Technically, it's almost 9 weeks, but with the gestational diabetes diagnosis, my doctor is likely to induce me if I haven't given birth by 39 weeks.