To my friends without children: Why I
am always late
I know it frustrates you when we say
we'll meet at 6 and I roll up somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes
late. I know that I've always been a punctual person and now this has
changed. Its not because I don't respect you, or I'm not looking
forward to seeing you. And its not that I don't know that I'm running
late. Its just really, really different getting out of the house with
an infant.
Before the baby, this is what it looked
like for me to meet you for a 6pm dinner date. At 5:30, I washed my
face, combed my hair and quickly changed my clothes if I needed to. I
grabbed my purse, hopped in the car and I was there.
After the baby, it looks something more
like this. 4:30, start to clean myself up, find some clothes to wear.
Pick up the baby to feed him, he's not hungry and won't nurse. Get
his diaper bag together, realize there are no clean bottles, wash
bottles, finish getting the diaper bag together. Go to change his
diaper, realize he's soaked through all his clothes, change the
diaper, wash the baby, find a new outfit for him to wear. Since I
haven't had time to get the laundry done, this involves digging
through piles of clothes for something. Get him dressed, realize that
the outfit I picked (which fit him when it went into the wash) no
longer fits him. Find a new outfit. Baby spits up as I'm putting the
outfit on him. Throw it in the wash and find a third outfit. Get it
on him even though he wants to wiggle from one end of the changing
table to the other. Okay. Baby's dressed. Time to get me dressed.
Realize that I have spit up in my hair. Rinse out my hair as best I
can in the sink, put on clothes. Baby now decides that he's hungry.
Feed the baby. Try to burp him without getting spit up on either his
clean clothes or mine. Variable success with that one. Okay, we're
ready to go. Oops, can't find his hat or the pacifier, dig through
the piles of stuff in the living room. Pacifier and warm hat located.
Realize that it's already after 6. Stop what I'm doing to send a text
and let you know I'm going to be late. Load the baby into the car
seat, spend several minutes trying to soothe him and get him buckled
in while he thrashes around (he HATES the car seat). Take a deep
breath. Insert pacifier in baby's mouth. Proceed to drive.
I'm not complaining. I wouldn't trade
it for the world, but you can wait a few minutes and be
understanding, he really can't.
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