This was supposed to be a post about Gabe and his tools, and I might be able to post that one tonight or something. The video, I guess, was too long for Blogger's tastes. Two attempts to upload and four wasted hours later, I'm giving up. Maybe if I give it all night to load it will be successful.
Instead, I'm going to rant for just a minute about baby clothes.
For anyone who is having a baby or shopping for someone who is having (or has) a baby, I have a piece of advice. Don't buy outfits. By this I mean don't buy any of the clothing that comes in two parts with shirts and pants that require socks to keep the baby's feet warm. These clothing, while cute, are the least practical articles of clothing ever conceived by human beings. Yes, they look adorable when you dress them in these clothes, but there is absolutely NO practicality about them.
And I am very practical when it comes to dressing the kids--some might equate that with laziness, but I don't. For one, who sees them but me? It's not like I need to impress our cats by getting our kids out of their PJs as soon as they wake up in the morning. They're just going back to bed again in a few hours anyway, then they either have to sleep in less comfortable clothes or we have to change back to PJs again. Time and energy wasted, I say. For another, and this is especially true with babies (less so with toddlers as they are at least able to cooperate somewhat), dressing in complicated clothes is a traumatizing and unpleasant experience for everyone involved.
Let me paint you a picture. Imagine a piece of rough silk has been cut out into a baby shape (or whatever the process would be to make a rough silk baby--you figure it out), complete with chubby little arms and legs and a giant head. Now, stuff that full, to capacity, with dry rice. Now you have a rough approximation of a baby, at least in terms of how cooperative they are to get dressed. Imagine dressing your rice baby. It will be unable to support itself, it will completely fail to help you put legs and arms into the holes for the clothes, and you will have perform an awkward half-hold/half-application of clothing to get anything done. To get the leggings on, you will have to coax and squirm the rice baby's legs into the pant legs. To get the top on, you will have to first awkwardly tug it down, through a head hole that is FAR too small, over the baby's giant head (invariably causing great discomfort to their ears since it will be all but impossible to hold the baby upright AND hold the head hole open with both hands to slip it over painlessly). Then you will have to squash and manipulate the baby's arms into the arm holes, remembering that the baby won't close its (remember, rice baby, which is an "it") hands to keep from snagging its fingers and thumbs, so you could very easily bend them back or get them caught up on something. Then apply the socks, which won't stay on its feet because they are too small for the socks to fit properly on.
In short, who ever thought baby outfits were a good idea? And we probably have $300 worth of the damn things cluttering up our house right now! The worst part is, I WANT to put them on because we--and others--have spent so much money on them and I feel like I should get some use out of them. But I refuse to, for the sake of my sanity and for the comfort of my child.
And that's not even accounting for the fact that you will have to repeat the process for the legs and the socks every single time you have to change a diaper.
Conversely, consider the sleeper. All of the baby's parts are kept warm. The clothing is easy to get the child in and out of (except for the ones with buttons instead of snaps or a zipper--the person who designed that style of sleeper should be executed in an amusing and humiliating way). The baby can be laid down on the sleeper to dress them, which means you don't have to spend most of your time and energy trying to figure out how to prop them up to get the clothes on. Diaper changes are far simpler because the baby's legs can be easily pulled in and out and the whole thing closes easily when you're finished.
And you know what? Your baby doesn't care what he/she is wearing! As long as it keeps them warm, they don't care if it's cute or not. They sleep in their own crap for god's sake! Dress them in something easy and spend the rest of the time you would have otherwise wasted on an outfit tickling them or doing something else equally un-traumatizing. Probably they will grow up to be much happier in life if they spent that extra five or ten minutes--during an important developmental time--laughing instead of experiencing excruciating discomfort for the sake of the parent's vanity.
And if you're shopping for someone else, buy them sleepers. A baby needs ten or so of them unless the parent is going to do laundry every other day, and they grow out of them in two or three months. Believe me, any sensible parent will be very appreciative of that kind of gift instead of another cute outfit that they will feel obliged to dress the child in once--and probably only once--so a picture can be taken as proof that it was used. And the baby has got to appreciate it too. If it could talk, I'm sure it would agree with me.
Now, go drop that rice baby in a pot of boiling water and make up a nice stir fry for the thoughtful people who didn't give your baby an outfit for his/her special occasion!
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