The First and the Rest

I was talking with a friend the other day about how we get more relaxed with our children as time goes by and how the things that we worried about so much with our first children really aren't such a big deal by the time our last children come around. I've thought about this a lot lately, thinking back on what I used to stress about when PK was little compared to now when E. is little. I remembered an article that I had saved from a baby magazine many years ago. I pulled it out the other day and had a good laugh.

The First and The Rest by Janet Konttinen
The other day I ran across a photograph of our first child sitting in his high chair eating dinner. He was about 1 year old and still considered harmless. Mealtime was always a special time, and I often played soft music for him because I'd heard it aided digestion. His face and hands were clean because I wiped them throughout the meal, and his high chair sparkled. I only wished I could boil the chair, along with his utensils, toys, crib sheets, and nail clippers. His socks matched his shirt and each other and his first walking shoes had a coat of white polish. The laces were hand-washed and sun-dried.

I recalled how, on outings the diaper bag matched the stroller, which matched the blanket, which matched my lipstick, which matched the wagon I used to haul around the 100-pound diaper bag. This bag contained 26 diapers and 1000 scent-free, aloe soaked baby wipes. It had a box of extra-soft, hypoallergenic baby tissues, dozens of special super-flexible cotton swabs, and two nostril suction bulbs. I carried two in case one slipped down under the three changes of clothes, baby sunglasses, sunscreen, tweezers, snakebite kit and earthquake preparedness gear.

One batch of triplets later, if I took a picture of my kids during dinner, an expert might be able to identify them as small humans, but further determinations regarding gender or location of facial features would be virtually impossible. Nobody gets anything wiped unless it's tomato based and in an eye, and music will only be heard if the neighbors go out for a night and their teenager holds rock band practice. During meals I pace around with a milk carton in one hand and an eggbeater in the other. I patrol for major food fights and escape attempts. The kids aren't sure what the eggbeater is for or what it's capable of. They refer to it as "Mommy's Special Gun." So I guess you could say meals are still a special time for us.

After dinner, the kids race under the table to see who can get to the fallen dessert pieces first. I don't clean the highchairs; I leave this job for the pets. Nothing gets handwashed except my hair. The only thing sun-dried is the lawn. And all that's boiled is the kids during their bath on Sunday night.

For the last few years, I have been able to go anywhere with a pacifier in one hand and a diaper in the other. I encourage the kids not to do anything that can't be cleaned off with the front of my t-shirt. If the girls get unbearably wet or dirty, they either go naked or try to talk their brother out of his cowboy vest. All their socks are white, and I'll never buy another pair of shoes requiring laces unless a formal study can prove that Velcro straps cause cancer. I don't have to worry about whether the strollers match anything because the colored parts are gone, along with my lipstick. The wagon? It still works, and recently I offered it to a friend who's expecting her first child. Before she decides whether to take it, she wants to come over to see if it's the same shade of red as the red cross on her infant emergency evacuation gurney and portable fire extinguisher.