We're talking Serious First World Issues here, man

I want to talk about something that is seriously wrong with the world today.  An important topic that I am sure is near and dear to your hearts.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BABY CLOTHES DESIGNERS??!!

What, that’s not on your list of crimes against humanity?  Oh.  Well, I guess you can just keep reading this post as a humorous rant.  The rest of us will just be over here, rending our clothes and gnashing our teeth THANKYOUVERYMUCH!

Baby clothes designers are obviously mentally incompetent asshats, who (and this is very important) have NEVER seen a baby in real life.

Kind of like how Karl Lagerfeld has never actually seen breasts and therefore designs clothes for women who don’t have them and Manolo Blahnik, who has apparently never seen a woman try to walk on anything other than a runway, keeps designing objects for foot-fetishists.

But baby clothes are so cute!  How can you say such a thing?!

I’m glad you asked, Voice of Unreason. 

Because those cute baby clothes are all “wash cold” or “delicate cycle” or “hand wash separately.”

WHAT THE HELL, MAN!?

Have you see the shit that gets on baby clothes?  I mean SHIT gets on baby clothes!  Cold water, delicate cycle, hand wash separately BULLSHIT!

Secondly, WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE BUTTONS?

Have you ever tried to button a wriggling child into clothing?  Let me ask you this, do straightjackets have buttons?

Warning to readers: be wery wery careful if you Google to find out the answer to this question.

So then tell us, oh wise one, do straightjackets have buttons?

I note a tad bit of sarcasm in that question.

Moi?  Never!  I am the Voice of Unreason and I would never use sarcasm… or irony!

Hm.

The answer, since you crave enlightenment-minus-the-Power-of-the-Google, is NO.  No buttons on a straightjacket.  Because trying to button a person that needs restraining into any garment is the apex of ridiculousness.  Someone is going to lose an eye!  So why on god’s green earth would someone put buttons on baby clothes?  Babies are simply smaller mental patients whom you aren’t allowed to sedate!  Or sit on.  APARENTLY.

Then there’s the size issue.  As a woman, I’m used to clothes that say one size but mean another and never believing the size on the label anyway.  But whereas I can try on clothes before I buy, it’s kinda hard to try clothes on a baby.

Doubt me?  Go take a drunken frat boy shopping.  Try to get him to try on clothes.  Try to keep him in said clothes.  Try to keep him from peeing on someone.

I’m pretty damn lucky, though, I get huge boxes of hand-me-downs (in good condition) from a SIL.  I can chase my half naked child through the privacy of my own house.  Provided that all the doors to the outside are closed, I stand a pretty good chance of catching her too.

But there’s always that moment where I’ve picked out something to put on my child for the first time and even though the size should be appropriate, it just SO DOESN’T FIT!  Problems include:

• My child is not a linebacker and doesn’t have the shoulders to fill out the onesie
• My child is petite (takes after her mother, she does, not that you’d know if from looking at me these days, but trust me, we have gelfling ancestry) and so wears 6-9 month onsies with 1-1½ pants
• So normally our problem is that clothes are too big, this then renders me completely unprepared for clothes that are too small

There is nothing like wrestling your child into clothes and then discovering that said clothes are too small.  Really, there isn’t. 

First you have a moment of incomprehension.  Did I put this on wrong? Followed by a tense face-off between you and your spawn.  You have less than ten seconds to magically remove the offending garment while your child inhales for that piercing shriek while simultaneously tensing his or her body for the coming fit.  Then there’s the struggle to get the item back off.  No matter how easy or difficult it was to get on, it has now shrunk another two sizes and WILL NOT COME OFF!  Somehow your child is now trapped in a garment that has no flexibility, one arm pinned across the chest, hand struggling out the neck opening with the elbow still caught in the sleeve… how did this happen? 

The moment you ask “how did this happen,” it’s all over.  The child is screaming.  You are wailing.  Your spouse will choose this moment to enter and ask, “What are you doing to our child?” and all you can think is “THIS IS ALL HIS/HER FAULT!”

But let’s be honest.  It’s the designer’s fault.

Fuck baby clothes designers.