Diapers optional

We lived in Shanghai for a couple years, in a small apartment down a traditional lane.  Our building and lane housed a number of multi-generational families, and one of the great pleasures of life there was walking out every morning and seeing elderly grandparents chatting and soaking up the sun, parents hurrying off to work, schoolchildren scampering around in their sweatsuit school uniforms...and the babies.  You never really saw newborn babies (Chinese babies are usually kept at home for the first few months), but there were plenty of slightly older babies.  And many of them were especially adorable because of their butts.

Yes, their butts.  Were adorable.  How do I know this?  Because they weren't wearing diapers.  And their pants, in a wise nod to practicality, were split down the crotch, so that if baby squatted or was held over a pot or toilet, he or she could pee or poop with impunity.  Nothing would get on the pants.  They looked like this:

Where the gender gap in costs begins...Baby Gap!

So, our family made a little pilgrimage to baby Gap last week to exchange some Chanukah gifts.  I had my eyes peeled for pants that could possibly squeeze over my baby's ample bum--and her even-more-ample cloth diapers.  Most pants just don't fit.  And then I saw them!  They were in the boy's section. On sale for $12.95.

I wasn't surprised that they were on sale, frankly.  They looked weird!  The crotch of these pants was cut really low, down by the knees. Which meant that they would fit perfectly over a bulky cloth diaper.
Here they are, in olive green.  The tag was labeled "corduroy pull-on pants":

Deal!  I grabbed a pair.  Then I looked around to see if there were any other colors.  And then I saw them in the girl's section, in off-white.  They were identical except that the ankles were gathered rather than straight.  AND...they were $2 more, $14.95 total.  AND, believe it or not, the tag was labeled  "harem pants":

I'm ashamed to say that I'm so desperate for well-fitting pants that I bought the girl's pair too, despite the gender cost differential.  And despite the absurdity of "harem" pants for babies.  Sheesh.