Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Daddy’s little girl, part 3

Immediately after Kaylee was born, I felt a need to buy clothes for her that glorified her parents. I’m not sure why, but it may have been because I was so tired. I probably thought, “Well, I’m exhausted and cranky, but I’ll feel better about parenthood if I put her in an ‘I love Mommy’ onesie.” And then to be fair, I had to buy a “Daddy” one, too.

Here’s an inventory of the parent-praising clothes Kaylee owns:
• “I love Mommy” onesie
• “I love Daddy” onesie
• “Perfect, just like Mommy” onesie
• “Daddy’s little princess” onesie
• Two pairs of “I love Mommy” socks
• Two pairs of “I love Daddy” socks

The first time I put Kaylee in her “Perfect, just like Mommy” shirt, she pooped on it about 30 minutes later.

All right, I can take that. It’s nothing personal. I mean, she’s just a baby. Plus, I got the stain out easily enough.

Then, a couple of Fridays ago, she spit up on the “I love Mommy” onesie at daycare. When a baby erupts there, protocol is to put soiled clothing in a red bag labeled with a biohazard symbol (!!) and send it home with the parents. But Rob, having never been made aware of spit-up protocol, didn’t realize he was supposed to take the red bag out of her bin, and the clothes were left over a weekend to ferment, sealed tightly in plastic.

I can’t be bothered to do laundry more than once a week, so it wasn’t until Sunday that I took a good look at that Mommy-worshiping onesie and realized that it had decided to grow some hair. Tiny little dark-green spots had sprouted on the shoulders, in the middle of all the crusty grossness.

Disgusted as I was, I decided to make a go of cleaning it, discovering only that baby laundry detergent doesn’t stand a chance against that kind of ick. Mentally humming a funeral dirge, I dropped it in the trash can.

“It’s ok, though,” I thought as I headed back to her room. “She still has the ‘Perfect, just like Mommy’ onesie, so that one can boost my ego.”

I took it out of the closet to gaze upon its cuteness – and there, right on the shoulder, was a dark formula stain. Not enough to keep me from putting her in it, but enough to make the “Perfect” statement on the front kind of ironic. Darn.

Plus, I think one of her “I love Mommy” socks is missing, kicked off in the middle of Target somewhere.

But her Daddy clothes?

Don’t you worry. They’re all pristine.

Grrrr.

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