Before you get all defensive about the innocence of children, let me tell you about my experience yesterday. If this episode is not enough to win you over to my side, well, you are simply not even willing to consider all the facts.
So, Hubby is going to visit his brother in Texas where they will make merriment, go to the beach and go to a Lynard Skynard (yes, I had to look up the spelling, I vaguely knew that there were y's in odd places) concert (and, in case you are curious, yes most of them are dead). But whatever, it is his trip not mine. Nary a spa or a shoe store on the agenda. Just beer, golfing and a dead guy on the drums.
But back to the point... sorry, I got distracted by something bitter.
Yesterday Colorado had this wicked snow storm. The drive to the airport in Denver should take a little over an hour; yesterday it took close to three hours ONE WAY. Oh egads. Bebe downs his bottle and sleeps all the way up there. As soon as we are back on the road to drive back to the Springs, bebe wakes up and is not a happy bunny. He is hungry and needs to be changed. Have I mentioned that the snow is coming down? As in, if this were rain, it would be called a "frog drowner" or, as Hubby eloquently says "raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock." Disgusting comment but it does paint an accurate picture.
So, this snow is dumping and I am afraid to leave the interstate to pull over and change Baby Sweetness. Because I am me a.k.a Worst Mother Ever, I don't have a bottle of water to mix with his formula. So, he downs his second bottle as a mixture of formula and a grapefruit Izze. He is not thrilled but, hell, any port in a storm and his childhood motto has quickly become "Improvise, Adapt and Overcome." It is his 'rents first rodeo so we feel that we deserve a bit of leeway on details like this. {Furthermore, to my credit, I was expecting a 2.5 hour round trip not a 6 hour blinding snow storm drama}.
So, bebe is relatively sated {if burpy} from his Formula, Grapefruit Juice, Sparkling Water Smoothie. It is all in the marketing of the product, you see. It is not that I am a bad mom, it is that he PREFERS grapefruit smoothies to plain, old, boring formula. He needs a little zing in his life like everyone else.
{Please be forewarned, if you are horrified by my parenting skills thus far, you might want to stop reading. It quickly degrades from here}
All is well until we are 10 minutes from home. He has apparently burped out the smoothie goodness and is hungry again. Since he rarely cries, I am kind of panicking. I rummage through the diaper bag but I have nothing edible except for two lip glosses, three lip balms and a sunscreen {they are all organic so I assume that they are, on some level, edible but I opt out of feeding him this. Even I won't cross that line; thank you very much}
I rummage in my purse and there is nothing there either. I normally have a fruit leather thing in there for him but I recently changed purses and it, apparently, did not make the transition. Well, crap, crap, crap. AH HA! A chocolate bar. BoNANza, all is not lost. I feel (momentarily) bad about shoving chocolate down a 10 month old's throat but he is, evidently, on death's door from starvation so I quickly justify it to myself. Here is my pathetic rationale: 1) it is organic and free trade so by medicating my baby with sweets, I am, essentially, saving the world 2) it is dark chocolate with orange peel. Dark chocolate is good for Alzheimer's prevention and orange has Vitamin C so this is PRACTICALLY health food 3) if he does not stop wailing, I am going to drive us off the road and, for sure, that is worse than loading him up with chocolate, right?
His car seat still faces backwards so I can't totally see what I am doing. However, this is not my first rodeo so I aim for his mouth and I hear his sigh of contentment. All is well. Couple of squares is all he gets and life is bearable again.
Until we get home and I see what I have created. For all you math people out there, here is a formula for you:
little chocolate + lotta drool = ONE BIG F-ING MESS
He has chocolate all over himself. It is all over his face, stuck in his eyebrows, in his ears, up his nose, ground into his hair, down his shirt, in his diaper, in one sock (I have NO IDEA how it got there). He sees the look of horror on my face and he starts laughing hysterically. So hard that he is slapping his knees with amusement.
Note to self: dark chocolate stains platinum blonde hair. On the top of his head, he now has a dark spot. No worries, I know it will fade away within a week. Sadly, I learned this lesson the hard way. He ground a strawberry into his hair about a month ago and had a pink splotch of hair for a few days. One person actually asked me if I purposely dyed his hair to match my lipstick. That dumb ass question did not even warrant a response.
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