Moms Don’t Wear White

Really I owe you a sweet post about James turning 8 months old. However, he has turned into a sick crank-pot so I’m going to tell you about that instead.

Today in a desperate attempt to find something clean and some what cute in my closet, I picked my go-to white cardigan. The same white cardigan that James spit up on last week. The same white cardigan that was still stained when I put it on this week. The same white cardigan that I stained again today at lunch.  

After a crazy day at work and one during which I received a phone call from the daycare about James’ first boo boo…. (He hit his head after he fell over reaching for a toy), I decided to take James to Kroger.

It started out pleasant enough. He happily sat in the shopping cart for the first 5 minutes of our trip. And then I did it. I pulled out the post-it with my list on it. This is where James transformed into the sick crank-pot I mentioned earlier. He wanted that post-it like it was the most important thing he had ever seen. And when I didn’t let him have it…it was like the world had ended. Throwing his head back in disgust, the tears, the whining. Wow. It’s just a post-it man.

But, then I made a crucial mom-mistake.

I picked him up.

All you moms are probably nodding your heads in understanding. Because once I picked him up, there was no putting him down. Believe me I tried…I would duck into quiet aisles trying to make putting him back in the shopping cart the most exciting thing he has done all day. He wasn’t buying it. So I lugged all 20 pounds of him around for the rest of our trip.

This is about when he spit up on my already stained white cardigan. People, he had peas for lunch. It wasn’t pretty. Luckily I had a bib with me to clean up the mess.

We trudged on. We ran into a nice man that commented on how cute he was and how nice it was that I could still carry him around. I told him “that’s what they say.” He laughed and said he understood.

Things headed down hill. He spit up again. A lot. Like more than the measly bib could handle. It was smelly and soggy and James was miserable. And frankly so was I.

We made it to the check out where the nice Kroger worked helped me unload my cart because she said it looked like I had my hands full. She was totally right. He had so much snot up his nose he could hardly breathe, a nap was definitely in order and my white sweater was a rainbow of baby stains.

The cashier asked me if he was my first. Maybe she had witnessed my rookie mom mistake of picking up my baby instead of forcing him to ride in the cart. And then she asked me, “will you have more.”

Without hesitation I said, we hope so!  Because despite the fact that James was a sick, tired, crank-pot, I love him more than words can say.

Plus how else would I learn lessons like Moms Don’t Wear White?