that tube and caleb

Will it stay or will it slide? Will she wear it or will she tear it? Will she love it or will she hate it?

Subject in question: A gorgeous pink-and-purple tube which doubles up as a skirt from Lifebaby, courtesy of Auntie Josephine. It’s one of those beautiful items of clothing which makes you so happy to have a daughter, and yet; I had a feeling that it’s one of those things moms love but daughters hate.

See, I think most kids (like me when I was young) love to wear nothing and if they have to wear something, the rattier the better. Cotton singlets with holes, frayed pants. Kids just want to be comfy.

I swore I wouldn’t do to her what my mom did to me, which was to stuff me in very pretty dresses I hated with a passion. But I DID! I couldn’t WAIT for an opportunity to bare her fleshy arms in that flirty little tube and so, at first chance – Caleb’s first month party – I swiftly tore off her ratty shirt, distracted her with a bird, and pulled the chiffony layers over her head.

Quickly, quickly, quickly, in the four seconds she was still looking at the bird, I tied the matching string around her neck so she would not be able to yank the entire top off.

The moment my hands came off, her hands came up. Tug tug TUG! Nipples showing, material straining, string cutting into her neck, she screamed!

Oh my, we tried to distract her with everything but nothing worked. I, most frustrated, was about to consign the tube to being a skirt sometime in future when KK very astutely observed that it wasn’t the tube she was objecting to but the damned string.

And so I pulled it off and here she is, sitting pretty in her clever papa’s arms.



Clearly, with no boobs and no string, Dee’s tube was bound to slide. Happily, the ruched elastic meant that if she stayed relatively sedentary and didn’t try to get at her belly button, we only had to adjust it for her once in a while.

Ah, the price of vanity.

The occasion in question: Caleb, my cousin Dawn’s offspring, the newborn with the nice profile (not flat), is a month old.



In the miraculous way in which newborns (especially those fully breastfed) put on weight, Caleb is developing a nice set of chipmunk cheeks and his nose no longer looks as prominent as it did because of the expanding surrounds. From looking like an old man a month ago, he now looks like a chubby babe.