Wednesday, August 14, 2013

a baby takes up residence

last week, i realized that my baby is bored. so i decided to finally buy him a play mat. it was a particularly fussy week in our house (four months seems way too early to teeth by the way. and also, i really got used to once a night feedings. what's with this suddenly two times a night routine, baby?).

anyways, in the midst of the fussies, i broke down and got one of those hideously colorful mats with cartoonish things dangling from it. the kind of thing i always thought i'd be able to avoid. turns out, there's a reason all moms have these things. happy baby = happy mama...am i right? 

i don't know why it is that before you (i) have kids you (i) have all these lofty ideals about spotless houses and minimal, chic decor (and dinner on the table and outings with friends, but that's another story). before i had a baby i would have looked at this baby mat and secretly thought to myself, i'm not going to be the kind of mom that let's her house get all cluttered with cheap, tacky crap when the baby comes. famous last thoughts...

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recently i read this post a friend wrote about her not-so-glamorous and yet still-completely-enchanting life as a wife and mother. it was so heartfelt, and i really related to a lot of it (definitely minus the picket fence;). we are slowly being welcomed to a new reality, in which mama wears pjs and spit up all day long and garishly colored, plastic toys are welcomed with open arms. 

how can a 14.5 pounder wield such tyranny over one's life? it's ludicrous. and yet true.

for instance, you can only run a max of one errand at a time. sometimes you just turn around and go back home because gosh darnit, it's raining again and i forgot an umbrella and anyways we were headed to the park so an umbrella isn't going to cut it with one mama, one baby stroller and one dog. and sometimes, like saturday when we were driving to the mall and hit traffic and the baby is screaming in his carseat, despite the awesome new toys back there, you realize, it's much easier to entertain the baby at the mall than to deal with evening fussies at home, where turns out that play mat is only good for so long. and so, you brave the traffic, order up a coffee and shop in fast forward. ;)

kind of like this:



in other words, any other horrible, noisy baby toys out there, come on in! our house is open!

1 comment:

  1. Haha, LOVE:) Next up on the giant, hideously colorful baby toy list is the exersaucer!

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