An Unexpected Way that Baby Makes a Family

Just a little update, a thought more like. I've recently realized that there are many small ways in which having and caring for a baby makes you from a couple into a family and it isn't just in sacrificing sleep for someone else's benefit.

When Terry and I first started living together, we tried to do laundry together, but it worked terribly because we hadn't yet apportioned jobs as one person's duty or another, so we were still trying to just have us both equitably divide laundry duty without any sort of system. As you might guess, this worked like heck. I wound up doing a lot of our laundry and felt disgruntled about the uneven divide. So early on we lit upon a solution that served us perfectly until the arrival of little Liam: to each his own. I'd do my laundry, and then it would be done whenever I wanted it, and done how I wanted it (no drying my skinny jeans or they'll be too tight etc). Terry would do his, so if he had to go commando for lack of underwear, such was life. And of course there were little modifications. I frequently tried to look out for him and launder a pair or two of undies when I knew he was getting low, just to save him from himself.

But then along comes Liam. And it turns out he's gotta wear clothes too, and they are really tiny, but even so he gets them pretty messy. He spits up on them and manages to get the clothes despite bibs. He pees during diaper changes and manages to get the changing pad cover, his outfit, his socks and his face all in the two seconds it takes me to cover him up. So then all those things have to be washed. So he manages to make a lot of laundry for a little guy, but it's all pint sized. And pretty soon all his good outfits that fit him well are dirty and he wouldn't even make the washer one quarter full.

What happens then? Well, since we have to run the washer anyway I go around the house and collect whatever other dirty clothes need washing just to make the load. So I wind up washing my clothes, Terry's clothes, household towels, etc. So his-and-her wash has become family wash. Its just a little thing, but it makes me realize how much a baby can structure the practices of your household and start to produce activities that are typical of a family.