Invasion of the Baby Stuff

My husband vacillates between fantasy
(above) and abject fear (below) on what
our house will be like once the baby comes.

If you build it, they will come.

Nothing makes the arrival of your new child seem more impending than when you really hit a stride and start filling your house with all that baby stuff.

We haven't actually started building a crib yet, but registry gifts have begun to arrive in the mail and dresser drawers are beginning to fill with onesies.

My husband seems to be operating under the illusion that all infant accoutrement will be contained in the nursery. He even offered to install in there one of those little box refrigerators to store pumped breast milk.

With a frankness that has grown along with my belly, I told him that the last mother-you-know-whating thing I was going to do was traipse all the way upstairs every time the baby needed to be fed.

When I added that the milk would have to be brought downstairs to be warmed up, I saw his brain working on also installing a microwave up there, but he wisely abandoned the plan. (Remind me to tell him to never use the microwave to warm up bottles, on any floor of the house.)

He'll just have to get used to the breast milk sitting next to the chocolate milk. And to all of the other crap spread all over the house.

Toys, blankies, stacks of diapers, books, toys, burp clothes, a boppy, toys, baskets of laundry, toys ...

I'm not sure which will bother my husband more, the clutter or the crap. He scraped up dog vomit from the carpet the other day readily enough. Maybe he'll surprise me and be totally OK with all of it. Depends on how much gin is next to the chocolate milk, I imagine.

I haven't told him yet about the possibilities of literal, actual crap everywhere. You know, the "poo bomb." My darling little cousin Amelia managed to deliver one to her daddy the other day, succinctly described in the blog post "Poopocalypse."

The absolute best post of all time regarding poo bombs remains in Volume 5 of "The Story About the Baby" on ironycentral.com. If you have the time an inclination, please read the whole story -- there's even a book (don't give it to my husband) -- and a sequel in "The Story About the Toddler."

If you're laughing so hard you're messing your own pants, it's a lot easier to deal with your baby's diaper disasters.