Daytime onesie

Reading: A Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling
Listening to: a World War II documentary on Yesterday
Outside: Rainy


Now, I would never classify myself as a chronic overachiever.

Picture from here.

Or a perfectionist.

Picture from here.

In fact, I once prided myself on accomplishing a humble To Do list on the weekends. Usually the list went something like this:

- Get up at a half-decent time (before 10)

- Throw on gym clothes (before I talk myself out of it)

- Swish open the bedroom curtains with a definitive, "Today is a yes day" hello to the morning

- Run 2 miles, exercise (push-ups and crunches) 

- Shower

- Clean house or mow the lawn (depending on the weekend and the season)

- Write 5,000 words or edit 100 pages, depending on where I was with which writing project at any given time

And somewhere in there I would have a coffee, eat something, dab on some makeup, and maybe organize a desk drawer. You know, corral the little hair pins that just end up in the back of drawers, and the pesky little paperclips that seem to wander all over the place on their own.

But now, ah, now. Now I am lucky if I have brushed my teeth. I am lucky if I am not tip-toeing around the house at 9:05 in the morning, frantically answering then hanging up on weekday sales calls, trying to sip a coffee that I desperately, desperately need (yes, Stephen King, there are lots of adverbs as part of this blog post, but I REALLY really need them. You have had small children, and so I think you will understand), and collecting the laundry dry on the radiators, while timing how long the boiled water for the formula has been cooling downstairs in the kitchen, praying that Jellybean stays asleep for the required number of minutes, and remembering to breathe.

Now, I have learned to embrace the Onesie. 

The Onesie is a Good Thing.

The Onesie is an all-in-one outfit that goes on quickly with minimal fuss. It is easy to wash, and, depending on the color (mine is leopard print), hides baby spit-up effectively. It can be worn for days on end. It keeps you warm so you save on those gargantuan energy bills. It holds me together in a warm but not too-snug way, mercifully hiding the podge I still have leftover from pregnancy (more on that, and my battle to vanquish it, in a future post). It makes sense. To me, the Zombie (The Mom. The Mombie), it is perhaps the only thing that makes sense.

So yesterday, I managed to prepare my forms for my US Passport Renewal. It took approximately four hours to complete a three-page application form. In my exhausted malaise, reading the instructions was like trying to figure out pre-calculus - I was transported back to my senior year of high school, thirteen years and thirty pounds ago, sitting in that horrible cold class room (I'm sorry, they kept the rooms ridiculously cold to the point where your nipples hurt - was this to keep us awake? Perhaps it was just horrible cruel pointless torture. Sort of like pre-calculus) and I shook my muddled head and looked at my baby girl, her face all squished up with edgy disapproval, and until she and I finally, finally, finally, finally managed a nap.

(Jellybean was having one of those, "I don't want to be put down all day" kind of days, you see.)

Leopard-print Onesie, I salute you. You keep me comfortable in hard times. I may even say I love you.

Daytime Leopard-print Onesie, you are my hero.

Happy Tuesday, everybody!