Where Have All The Burp Cloths Gone Gnome?

When Eve was a baby big enough to "crawl" (and "crawl" meant, for several months, dragging her tiny body along the floors by her right arm like a wounded soldier), she went through a charming period where she spit up ALL THE TIME. For about three months, Eve would start army-crawling herself across the floor, puke up half her bottle, then slide herself through it. (All of her baby clothes from this period in her life have gray stains down the center.)

Now, those of you without children who ever did this sort of thing might be wondering: Um, once she spit up, why didn't you just clean it up BEFORE she could crawl through it? 

Ha. 

There are two answers.

Sometimes? It just happened too quickly. One second she'd be happy and clean and dry, the next second she'd be two feet to the left and have milkpuke on her chin and a trail of milkpuke behind her.

But mostly? Because the burp cloths were gone. Vanished. Nowhere to be found. We owned eleventeenmillion burp cloths and we had them stacked and ready to go in handy places and then they were carried away by puke gnomes. 

This post is about puke gnomes. Spit-up goblins. Burp cloth monsters. Whatever you want to call them. They exist. 

And now that I have ANOTHER crawler...

Well. I hoped he'd be different. 

What a happy baby boy!

He eats differently than Eve and boy, does he ever move differently than Eve! 

Wow! Look at him go!

He is fast and on all fours (and climbing walls and trying to mount the cat). 

Yet despite their differences, he has reached the age where he, too, has become a Master Of Spit-Up.

Of course THIS time? THIS time we have MORE burp cloths. We have all the ones left over from Eve's days spent mopping the floor with her goo PLUS tons more we added to the collection to ensure we'd never be without burp cloths.

So that now whenever we're like, "Hey, where's the baby?"

And he's all: 

BLEEERGH!

And we're all: 

HE IS SPITTING UP AGAIN! QUICK! GET A BURP CLOTH!

We just have to turn to our burp-cloth supply! On our burp-cloth table!

EXCEPT NO!!!!!!!

WHAT IS THIS???

BLEERRGGGGGGGGHPUUUUUKKKKEEEEE!

It's the Puke Gnome! The Spit-Up Goblin! THE BURP CLOTH MONSTER! He has come to our home when our backs were turned and has made off with the entire stack of burp cloths!!! AGAIN!!!!!

Bleeeerrggggg! I'm absconding with the burp cloths and returning to my home land! We need the burp cloths more than this family! 

There are no burp cloths. Anywhere. So in like, 3 seconds we have to go from seeing the baby spitting up to our empty table to weighing our options. 

Do we rape the environment just a little harder by using a paper towel? 

Pretty sure Dr. Sears doesn't recommend dry paper towels for wiping goo off the baby. Or anyone who cares about being green. This is not a good idea. Works, though. 

Do we use our disgusting, germ-infested, crusty (but cute!) decorative dish towel?

No. 

You know darn well what we use. 

A sleeve.

At least, we use the sleeve of our shirts to wipe the mess off the kid. Then something else to get the mess off the floor. 

And then go searching for that damned gnome.

In case you're wondering how I've been? I've been fine. But probably
you can guess from this post that the baby isn't yet sleeping through the night.