A Throw-Away-The-Underwear Day

When I was pregnant with N, a mother of one of my violin students gave me some interesting advice.  When you're pregnant for the first time, you hear lots of "sleep when the baby sleeps" and "accept help when you need it" and other token phrases of advice.  But this one I had never heard before, and I don't think I've heard it since then, either.

She said: "When they have an accident, just throw away the underwear and buy a new pair."

At the time I thought, "How wasteful!  I would never do that."

But this morning, as I pulled a poop-covered C out of her crib, I totally got that.  Totally.

For me, it's only been 4 years of spraying stains, soaking clothing, washing, and scrubbing... and I already feel pretty lazy about it some days.  Especially days when I'm feeling under-rested.  Like days when I've been up 2-3 times every night for the past two weeks with a teething infant.

(Not that I'm complaining.  For some reason, I'm always happy to see little C, even in the middle of the night.  They say you should discourage night-waking by not talking to or smiling at your baby in the middle of the night.  But I can't seem to help myself.  Even when my eyes are half open I just have to respond to those I'm-beside-myself-with-happiness-that-you're-here-Mama grins.)

I know that I can get a new onesie, just like one C covered in poop this morning, for about $1 at Savers.  Surely it is worth $1 to avoid spending 10-15 minutes of my time scrubbing out a stain, and possibly repeating that process and re-washing it when the stain won't come out?  And while I'm at it, shouldn't I just throw away the crib sheet that got stained as well?  We have SO many of those.

I can hear all the environmentalists and tightwads out there shrieking in horror.

Come on, people, won't you affirm my laziness here?  ;-}