2010
Lady in Red
Say what you will, but one of my favorite memories from growing up was driving down State Street in South Salt Lake at sunset and making a game of pointing out which of the girls standing on corners were just waiting for the bus and which were waiting for another kind of pick-up…
(I’m using a jump here because what follows might not be considered “family friendly” to some people, and I because I’m running some review campaigns in the near future (so you can win money! I’m doing it all for you!), I just feel better about talking about hookers somewhere other than on my homepage. Cool?)
2010
Wine Wonderland
A couple of weekends ago we went up to Sonoma and met Sara and Ron at a party thrown by our favorite vineyard, and because I had left my camera on top of Moose‘s fridge the night before, I shot video instead of stills all day, and so this is what you get–moving pictures of what it looks like when we take the time to take time out.
(Could there BE any more links in a single sentence?)
2010
#hygienefail
When Wombat came home from the hospital, my mother, who was staying with us (aka keeping us alive) for a few weeks, became singularly obsessed with bathing the baby. At first it seemed normal and I chalked it up to her wanting to cradle and caress that sweet newborn babyflesh while she had the chance, and so for those first few weeks, Wombat was spectacularly, sparklingly clean–so clean you could eat dinner off his head, morsel by rogue morsel (not that I’ve ever done that or anything).
When my mom went back home we bathed the baby…regularly, by which I mean we could usually remember when he’d last been washed and what kind of messes he’d been into in the interim (i.e., NO MESSES. If you use a wipe when you change a diaper and you stay on top of the milk that tends to collect and coagulate in the neck folds, there’s not a whole lot of grunge making it past the long-sleeved footy pajamas of an immobile newborn. Wombat was born in December, remember, which means there was no sweat, no sunscreen, no outside adventures, and no rolling around on the ice-cold floor for the first few months of his life. Back then, I just couldn’t weigh the hassle of bathing against its lack of absolute necessity.) (Not to mention that he has never tolerated–and still doesn’t–having water poured on his head.)
Eventually, of course, the weather got warmer and the baby started eating solids and my mother came back to visit and made us believe she might actually have a frightening addiction to bathing the baby. She would actually steal him from my arms and toss him in the sink, cackling with glee as she soaped up his chubbles and inhaled the heady scent of baby shampoo. I was on the verge of staging an intervention, but instead we just poked gentle fun at her and considered playing tricks like hiding all the washcloths, bwahaha. Meanwhile, she tried to deflect attention from her disorder by giving us crap about letting our kid wallow in his own filth for days on end. Please, I thought. He smells fine and he’s not spotted with mold. I think it’s going to be okay. When we visited my parents in May that first year, I let her bathe him as often as she wanted to; her house, her rules.
Okay, so now that he’s eighteen months old (ZOMG!!!) and he’s into absolutely everything–he insists on feeding himself, he enjoys rubbing his hands in patches of dirt and exclaiming “Dirt!”, he gets up from naps all shimmery with the sweat that broke out during his vigorous afternoon crib calesthenics–I’ll admit that he’s in need of a regular and hose-down. (Sometimes, actually, that’s what we do. We’ve also been known to pop him in the cooled hot tub with us and call it good (enough).) We’re still spot-cleaning his hands and face and nethers as necessary several times a day, and his newly buzzed hair is much less susceptible to mange than were his flowing locks, but still…yeah…I know we should be better than this, but I honestly can’t remember the last time we gave him a full-on soap-and-shampoo bath. A week ago, maybe? A week and a half?
(That photo’s from September of 2009, and I know we’ve bathed him since then.)
Yesterday when I went to pick up Wombat from daycare, he had white patches of sunscreen streaking his cheeks and neck and hairline. “He has a lot of sunscreen on,” quoth Daycare Lady. “You’re going to have to give him a bath.” Now, maybe it was just me, but I detected a subtle subtext of “HINT HINT” in her tone, and to cover up my cringe I said, “Ha ha! Yes! Of course! A bath! I know what those are!” and, you guys, I think I fooled her.
So last night the plan was to give him a bath after Simon came home, but then he came home later than expected and then Moose came over for dinner and then we were eating and drinking and before we knew it it was eight o’clock and Wombat was eye-rubbing and fatigue-wailing and then, despite my best intentions, we put him to bed, yet again, without a bath. And I felt horrible about it, I really did, and not just because I feared the judgement of Daycare Lady, who would surely be examining him for signs of hygiene neglect.
So do you know what I did? (I can’t believe I’m admitting this.) This morning when I was putting on his fresh diaper, I gave his whole body a once-over a couple of baby wipes and then I greased him up with the really yummy-smelling lotion. Then I took a washcloth to his face and hair to get rid of any leftover sunscreen, making sure to towel his head dry so it wouldn’t be obvious to the daycare folk what I’d done. Is that horrible? (I think it’s kind of horrible.)
For what it’s worth, we brush his teeth every night!
