the universe

I keep a running eye on where Elle is relative to clothes.  We've been blessed with a healthy stream of hand-me-downs to date, and while I need to purchase things to supplement (socks and warm-weather pajamas, mainly, along with special occasion clothes.  And shoes), I've been able to largely get by on gifts and hand-me-downs.  We are very lucky, and I pass things on to a friend with a daughter nine months younger than Elle, so we continue the circle.

Elle's solidly in a 2T right now, and has an insane number of summer shirts, shorts, and dresses just waiting to be worn.  I also found a decent store of warm 2T clothing that will be good for this fall.  She's a little limited on the transitional stuff (i.e. long-sleeved t-shirts to get her through to the really hot weather), but I don't have a problem with it; she doesn't mind wearing the same shirt every couple of weeks.

In looking through my boxes (piled in the back of my rec room-- we're classy like that) I realized that I have very little 3T stuff.  She's long, so she's been moving up into the next size midyear-- which may or may not continue.  Who knows?  What I did know is that she has only a small amount of 3T clothing waiting for her.

Now, that's not a huge deal.  I can certainly go out and buy a stock of toddler clothes-- leggings, shirts, etc.  I shop the sales, get my discount coupons.  But I was starting to think in the back of my mind that I needed to plan for this, and maybe keep an eye open for clearance items, etc.  It's just something I wanted to make sure I budgeted for.

Then I got an email from a friend today, who has a friend in another state who has what appears (from the picture) to be a half-ton of 3T clothes, all fairly neutral in terms of season.  She's bringing them back to me after her visit there over the Memorial Day holiday.  This friend of a friend is thrilled someone can use the clothes.

Isn't it funny how the universe, somehow, provides?