The Cycle of Nasty Continues

I got into the car this morning and gagged.  I nearly threw up the coffee and half a piece of peanut butter toast I had eaten for breakfast.  The seatbelt was sweaty again.

 

Maybe this is beating a dead horse after my last post, but holy moly, I live with boys.  And boys are gross.

 

Jamie barfed on me twice this morning and snotted all over my second shirt, so I’m on my third change of clothes.  I don’t wonder at all why I have so much laundry to do.  Nor why I have barf-stained clothes and not nice clothes.  I seriously noticed the other day that one of the tank tops I bought at Old Navy not too long ago had an inch and a half of difference in the lengths of the straps.  An INCH AND A HALF.  No wonder I had trouble keeping my bra from showing!  But I can’t bear to by expensive, quality-made clothing because my clothing is bound to get ruined. 

 

Then Jamie tried to squirm out of a particularly nasty diaper as I was changing him and honestly, why does he do that?  Why do all babies do that?  You’d think they’d like being changed from a disgusting, smelly mess of a diaper to a fresh one, but no, they wriggle away and fuss as though you were trying to bite off their legs.  All the while, I try to keep him from putting his foot in the poopy diaper that just came off or from running away with a butt that hasn’t been wiped and seriously, I’m just going to start bathing him after every diaper change.  The changing table is now the bathtub.

 

Tony plays basketball three mornings a week and takes the family car.  There’s the family car and his truck.  Someday, SOMEDAY, I will own a car that is mine, that is not used primarily to transport children, that is not covered in crumbs and dog hair, that doesn’t have a stroller in the back and snacks under the seat and emergency diapers and sunscreen stashed every-which-where.  I swear it.  And pigs might fly, too.

 

Anyhow, my husband plays one game at 5:30 am and one game at 6:30 am, at different local high school gyms, with different groups of old men trying to relive their glory days (Tony is routinely referred to as “the young guy” – primarily due to his lack of arthritic gait, I’m sure.  Also, no grey hair).  So then, after he gets home and jumps into his pristine truck to go to work, I cram the kids in the car, make sure they have their shoes on and are buckled safely, grab my lunch and get myself settled.  I’m usually in a panic by then because no matter how early I get up, we are always late.  I think this is because when I get up earlier, I feel like I can squeeze one more thing into our routine, so I’ll try to empty the dishwasher or start a load of laundry or pick up dog crap on the lawn (boy dog = gross dog: there’s a theme here) or, heaven forbid, put on more makeup than just mascara for the day (why should I have the chance to look good decent? I certainly don’t have self image problems or anything.  Spending more than ten seconds in front of a mirror in the morning couldn’t possibly make me feel better about myself). 

 

We were late this morning.  Really late.  Insensibly late.  I was considering not leaving at all, but I have a job, you know, and I sort of have to be there.  Jamie was up half the night screaming and fussing, due to teeth or the heat or some unholy combination thereof or maybe because he just felt like being an asshole, and I am tired.  I’m sure Tony’s tired, too, as he was kept awake almost as long as I was.  Jamie wants me when he’s upset, no matter how much Tony tries to calm him down and let me get some sleep, Dear God, I just want some sleep, please.  I’m running so low and I snap at the kids and Tony all the time and I just want some sleep.  By the time 1:30 rolled around, I took Jamie back from Tony and let him sleep, but I was up until 3 am with a squirmy kid who just couldn’t get comfortable unless he was sleeping on my face, sucking his thumb, and what the hell, kid?  My face is not a pillow and the sucking noises so close to my ear are unbearable!  And then, this morning, he wouldn’t let me put him down without shrieking as though I were ripping his toenails out one by one.  He and Charles both showered with me.  I’m not entirely sure I washed my hair this morning.

 

This is all going to come together here, I promise:

 

As I pulled the seatbelt over my shoulder, I realized that, for the second time this week, I was getting into a car with a sweat-soaked seatbelt.  It was wet, and it has started to smell.  I drove all the way to preschool and then all the way to work with a sweaty seatbelt over my shoulder.  Not my sweat, someone else’s.  And it doesn’t matter how many times I have been in contact with that someone else’s sweat on his person, on a seatbelt, it squicks me out.

 

I’m going to have to start putting a towel on the front seat of the car the night before basketball so Tony can throw it over his shoulder before he sits down.

 

But how do I clean the seatbelt?