Thursday, June 14, 2007

Bad Luck Clothes

Before baby T was born, my sister, whose daughter is ten-months older than mine, gave me bags upon bags of baby clothes. There were girl clothes and boy clothes and either/or clothes. There were hats and shoes and sleepers and tights and dresses and overalls and diaper shirts and grobags and things I’d never even heard of. There were so many cute little things that it was a bit overwhelming. It didn’t seem possible that a baby could ever wear that many clothes. It didn’t seem possible until I actually had a baby and realized how many sleepers and diaper shirts a baby can dirty in one day. It didn’t seem possible until I discovered how often a new parent does laundry even with so many baby clothes to choose from.

One day, when Sasha was about eight weeks old, I put her in a sweet green sleeper and told my sister what baby T was wearing. Her response was “ah, yes, that was a bad luck outfit.” A what? What on earth is a bad luck outfit? I thought she was crazy.

It wasn’t until recently that I discovered that there is indeed such a thing as a bad luck outfit. Baby T’s bad luck outfit is the cutest little one piece shorts and t-shirt. It’s pale yellow and blue and has a green frog, a green turtle and a few butterflies on it. It’s adorable. The first time she wore it, she woke up from a nap covered from the edge of her diaper up to her neck. Mr. T was the one who went in to get her and he needed to call in reinforcements. It was a disaster. I soaked it and washed it and miraculously, the stains came out and the frog and turtle lived to see another day. The next time she wore it, she was sitting in her Bumbo looking super-cute while I put away the groceries. It occurred to me that it had been a while since I’d changed her diaper so I picked her up and went to the change table. When I got there, I realized that something awful had happened – something that can only be described as a shit storm. The change table was covered in the stuff, and the Bumbo was too, within seconds her foot was contaminated and before I could do anything to stop her, she’d grabbed her foot and then put her hand to her face. She had it on her chin, her hands, her thigh, and both feet. I used up a record number of wipes and wet face cloths to get her clean. I briefly considered throwing the whole change table in the garbage but stopped myself. I soaked and washed and, once more, the outfit was saved.

Today, it’s warm out and it’s the perfect day for shorts and a t-shirt. It’s the perfect day for the frog and turtle. So, this morning, after her first nap, I got ready to change her diaper and put her in the bad luck outfit. It turns out that the baby doesn’t even need to have the clothes on her body for the bad luck to rub off. As I removed the diaper and reached up to grab a new one, baby T started to poop, and poop and poop some more. The diaper shirt she’d been wearing was under her so it caught the mother load. The damage caused in those ten seconds was surreal. I had to stop and strategize. Clearly, something had to be done but it had to be the right thing. The wrong thing would only make things worse. I cleaned Baby T and threw all of the wipes into the diaper shirt. I wrapped it in a bundle and placed it on the edge of the change table. I then used some wet face cloths to make sure Baby T was decontaminated. I put her in a new diaper and then put her in her crib while I dealt with the rest of the mess. As I left the room, gingerly holding the offensive bundle in my hand and heading straight for the garbage, I swear I saw that frog wink at me. That's it, unless I can get myself a matching HazMat suit, she’s not wearing it again.

1 Comments:

Anonymous tim2tahoe@msn.com said...

This is truly one of the most hilarious stories about babies that I have read...keep up the great storytelling and more importantly, the great parenting!Cheers, Tim Callicrate

10:54 AM  

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