New Moms and Cleanliness

I love new moms, I really do. I was a new mom six years ago. I totally know what they are going through. But, I now have three kids, and having three kids six and under changes how you do things and how you think about things.

This morning I was sitting behind a new mom and dad in church. They had an adorable little blonde haired daughter, probably around 10 or 11 months old. Everything was normal until I saw the mom take her sippy cup and put it in the diaper bag. She put the cup in a baggy before putting it away! I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe the cup leaked a little and they didn't want it to leak on anything. Then the mom took the little girl to get her diaper changed in the bathroom. When she came back she told her husband that the changing mat needed to be washed. Again I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe some poop got smeared on it. They didn't put the changing mat back in the diaper bag, though, they left it sitting in the pew during the rest of mass. I guess they didn't want to contaminate any of the books or other items in the bag.

Now, if this were me today, the sippy cup gets put in the diaper bag without baggy covering, and the changing mat, if dirty goes in, too, just folded so the mess is on the inside so that its not touching anything in the bag. (By the way, a wipe takes care of yucky stuff like that.)

I was never a complete freak over cleanliness of Ian's things, but I rinsed off a dropped pacifier, or brought an extra one in case it came loose from the tether that attached it to his shirt. Now, my kids eat popsicles off the sidewalk, fruit snacks off the floor at Wal-Mart, and pretty much anything that falls on my kitchen floor. I'm not saying I'm proud of it, and I do have my limits. No food that falls on a (public) bathroom floor, sandy foods are off limits unless rinsed off, and suckers and candy with hair stuck to them don't make the cut. But, sometimes when its the last fruit snack and your kid drops it on the floor at the grocery store, and there is no visible dirt, its just better to take the risk than deal with the horrible tantrum that could accompany such a dilemma. They'll outgrow this stage and realize it is gross to eat food off the floor and the problem will be solved. Kids are pretty durable.