I've been clumsy all my life, lucky to walk in a straight line without tripping over my own feet and mastering using a handrail whenever one is available for the safety of myself and everyone around me. So it should be no surprise that, even as an adult with no adult beverage in hand, eating can sometimes get the best of me. It's something that has been well documented by my family throughout the years with countless embarrassing pictures that have been shown to every boyfriend I've ever had. My boyfriend now makes fun of me whether I drop something down my front publicly or privately and particularly likes telling the story about crab legs for my birthday. The short version is the butter stains never came out and I can never wear that shirt in public again.
Over my years of endless clumsiness, I have learned how to at least downplay the damage, as it's often impossible to avoid altogether. Jackets, patterned shirts, a sweater I remove before eating... these are all basic tactics to avoid attention for my food's attack on me. Something basic that any klutz, like myself, would know is to avoid the color white. Unless it is an ironclad requirement for a uniform or something, avoid white like the plague.
Now babies. They are messy little creatures. Newborn, infant and toddlers are all messy. Now the level of messiness often differs with each age. Newborns are messy mostly from formula and poop. Two stinky items that are just part of being a newborn (assuming you aren't breastfeeding). Infants have that plus cereal and baby food on a daily basis. And they have the uncanny talent of tossing food off their highchair in all directions. You need a 360° shield just for feeding them at times...although the family dog might dispute the shielding decision. And toddlers. You can probably take the whole formula thing off the list, but add dirt, mud and anything else they can get their adorably grimy hands in. And most toddlers are potty training and depending on how eventful that is, I'm going to leave poop on the list. And don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying parents don't clean and bathe their children, I'm simply saying that kids earn those baths on a daily basis. It's normal and unavoidable.
Which brings me to my point. Why in the world are the most common Onsies, the ones every parent has and uses, white? Who sat in a meeting decades ago, looked to their right and said "Well, Bob, white seems like a good idea. Let's mass produce 'white'." Sure, it's probably cheaper to produce white, rather then dye them, but have you seen the price of them now? I'm thinking a couple cents difference really isn't going to matter at this point. Formula stains don't come out, even with ultra concentrated bleach. And the baby detergent doesn't even touch them. So far for me, poop does come out, so maybe I should count my blessings on winning that battle. Seeing some onsies a mom graciously donated to me in larger sizes have all sorts of different colored stains. Which, I could care less because Sophie will undoubtedly add more of her own, but the point is, white shows everything. And absolutely, you can try to resell them when the time comes when you're done making babies. But people generally don't pay for stained clothes, even gently used, $.25 clothes. So now, you have to add them to the sad pile of pre-pregnancy jeans that we will forever be stuck with, unless you want to donate them. (Which, let's be honest, I'll hold onto that dream of squeezing my butt into the jeans for at least ten years.)
To have a basic, everyday bodysuit for a child is a great idea. But maybe make white the minority and color combo packs the norm. It's just more practical to have the kids wear something with color that can maybe hide the stain a bit better.
I just got done with Sophie's laundry, specifically the white onsies, can you tell? My stockpile of pristine white onsies is slowly dwindling as every week passes. *sigh*
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