I’m crowded. Roll over.

After my fabulous baby shower last week (a lovely garden party-themed shindig complete with pasta salad, cake, and the requisite guess-the-candy-in-the-diaper game), I sat on the floor of our sun room, surrounded by boxes of used and new baby stuff, thinking, “Where are we supposed to put the damn baby?”

I felt strongly about not letting all my friends’ trailblazing baby ways go untapped, so the following language was included on the invitation: “RocketGirl and RocketMan are committed to reducing the ‘baby footprint’ by sourcing gently-used hand-me-downs whenever possible. Your hand-me-down gift is welcomed. Please contact…. to see whether your item has already been provided.” The lovely invite—designed and mailed by Smurf over at FitLifeSF.com—also included wildflower seeds to continue with the green theme; Dottie over at GoodCrafternoon.com was the registry wrangler. And oh, lord, how the hand-me-downs rolled in!

So not only can I be comforted knowing we’re not buying new stuff just for the sake of it, but we also provided our friends with the service of Getting Baby Crap Out Of The House. Among the hand-me-down goodies:

• Clothes: A dresserful of onesies, tiny dresses, tinier t-shirts, jeans up to 24 months, sweaters, and kimono shirts
• Diapers: A 2′x3′ boxful of newborn-sized (unused, of course!)
• Gadgets: Wipe warmer; bathtub (two of’em); year-old carseat (that Mollie grew FAST);
• Blankets: Lots and lots and lots of them
• Other: Boxes full of books, toys, and other little fun items

And that’s just the used stuff. Among the new items, we got a stroller, which will heretofore be known as the Douchewagon, thanks to the copywriter over at Graco (“The Quattro Tour Stroller is well built, ultra-convenient and extra-comfortable—sort of like the SUV of strollers… Other life-simplifying features include deluxe parent storage tray with one cup holder for your water bottle and another for your well deserved iced mocha.”).

And oh, the cuteness could kill. There was a cupcake hat, a hand-knitted Devil-Ette hat (which, yes, made me cry a little); high fashion that will be the envy of the toddler set; and, of course, baby’s first Halloween costume. And loads of other goodness I don’t have time to list.

After a few stressful afternoons for RocketMan—he doesn’t deal well with disorganized clutter—we got everything stowed and in a semi-permanent home; eventually we’ll have to move the basket of blankets out of the crib, I suppose, but that can wait for now. As always, the generosity of my friends humbles me; I sat on that couch surrounded by 20 women, all of whom I’ve only met in the last eight years, and all of whom are loving, beautiful rockstars who, I can say without question, love me, and who will all love the RocketBaby even more.

The schemers of this day of fabulousness: Karen, Dottie, Laine, Smurf, Eileen and Melinda. All I had to do was show up in pink and smile!