burp rag

When Parker was 11 weeks old I was convinced by my husband to go to this welcome brunch for resident's wives. I guess he was tired of hearing me complain about having to give up my life for a year while he had all the fun working, about how we moved away from all my friends, and about how tired I was from Parker needing constant attention. So I packed Parker a really quick, smaller version of his diaper bag and went.

They had childcare there in a room adjacent to the banquet room, so I signed Parker in and left his bag with him. He was by far the youngest child there. This should have registered as odd to me, but I was still blinded by the sunlight and shellshocked from being outside the house for the first time since I left the hospital and moved to St. Louis.

I left the babysitter room and went to the banquet room and immediately felt myself burning...every mother with an infant had their kid in the room with them. At first I just played it cool, like I didn't care that Parker was in a room full of insane toddlers. But as time ticked by, I was sweating more and more. There was a girl at the table with me and she had her baby in a car seat next to her. I asked her how old her daughter was. "8 months." OMG I am a terrible mother. After maybe 30 minutes of palpitations, I excused myself to go check on him.

There was this very nice older woman who was with him and digging through the bag I left, which contained only pumped milk, a bottle, a pacifier, and a blanket (and I think exactly one diaper). And bless this woman's heart, right when I'm behind her she goes "wow, mommy didn't leave very much for you." Crap. At this point, I considered just backing away and grabbing the nearest kid to pretend that kid was my own...but I was already awkwardly standing too close to her. She turned around too quick anyway. I was SO embarrassed. I started spewing out apologies to her, about how I've never taken him out before (lies). She was so nice about it and explained that she was just looking for a burp rag. I told her that I must have forgotten one (lie) and that I was so sorry.

What I really should have told her was the truth: I don't use burp rags. I use my shirt. I realized how off putting this is to other people when I had someone over recently and Parker spit up on himself. Instead of getting a burp rag or a washcloth, I took my hand and rubbed the spit up off his face and shirt, and wiped it on myself. My guest was laughing, but I could tell she was slightly mortified.

When I later reflected on this, I realized that it gets even grosser. I dig Parker's boogers and snot out with my fingers and also wipe these on my clothes. I really am a disgusting person.

I do draw the line at poop.