Superficial Rant

So, here's my bit of motherly superficial ranting for the year, since I do try awfully hard not to get caught up in the irritating little details that accompany parenting. But, I can't hold this one back:

HUGGIES can just suck my ass. Since they refuse to hug any part of my son's little tushie, they can suck mine all they want.

We were given both Pampers and Huggies as baby shower gifts, and I was intrigued to see which (if either) we would ultimately cling to as our diaper of choice. We had problems with Huggies from the very beginning when Snippet was wearing the teeny tiny newborn size. He was constantly pissing up the front of them, or leaking other, nastier things up the back or out the sides. The Pampers would occasionally cause us problems (mostly the Swaddlers variety, actually), but it was the Huggies that were so terribly consistent in their disappointment. I chaulked it up to perhaps our not being diaper pros and thought maybe we were just putting them on wrong, or not tight enough, etc.

We used up the Huggies (of which we only received one box in newborn size) and continued on with all the free Pampers. Snippet chunked up to Size One several weeks ago and we have been plowing through the Pampers in that size as well. I was saving the one box of Huggies we received for last, out of simple dread of having to use them. Having run out of the Pampers now, I cracked the box on the Huggies this morning, which spelled ultimate doom for the brand.

Shortly after his mid-morning nursing session, Snippet was writhing in agony as he prepared for a major expulsion. As I held him in my lap, trying to comfort him through it, the equivalent of Infant Armageddon ensued. Mere seconds after it began, I saw the brown stain start weeping out across his pants, his onesie and my hand that cradled his behind. He hadn't even finished his attack on humanity, and already the damn Huggies was leaking. I leapt up the stairs to the changing table, watching the grossness spread all across his clothes. I stripped him down and the nastiness was everywhere---his chest, stomach, thighs, back, and even his poor head as I pulled the disgusting onesie off of him. This was no cleanup job for a wipe, or even a whole box of wipes. This was one of those moments when only near-complete immersion into a bath of warm water and Aveeno suds will do. I draped one of his bathrobes around him, and practically flung him into his bath tub, just to get the funk away from me. I have rarely experienced the kind of relief that accompanied the moment that I plunged my sticky hands into the warm bath water and watched my poor son transform from a foul-smelling little beast into a lovely lavendar-smelling clean sweetie.

Only question now is: Is it horribly ungrateful to throw out the box of Huggies? I sure as hell will not be using them, but I feel bad (and wasteful) throwing them into the trash. Since the package is opened, I don't imagine that a community service center would accept them as a donation, and I would hate to curse anyone I personally know with them. I suppose the trash is the only suitable place for them to live, where the seagulls can trot all over their pathetic plastic bodies and squawk their worthlessness to the world.