When I first found out I was pregnant I immediately went into list-making mode, creating Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, scribbles on the back of receipts, filling notebooks and day planners full of things to buy, things to do, things to attend. I searched Amazon for other people’s lists of baby gear must-haves. I read dozens of reviews and mommy blogs to find the BEST bouncy seat and the BEST swing and the BEST crib mattress and crossed stuff off my lists as I went.

But nowhere in the great interwebs or the parenting magazines or the advice books did anyone say this:

BUY A BETTER WASHING MACHINE.

Now, I realize some of you are going to curse me soundly for complaining about my old washer when you still have to haul all your clothes down to your building’s shared basement laundry – or worse, to the laundromat blocks away. Let me just say, I’ve been there too. But having My Very Own In-House Laundry was absolutely #1 on my list of Things To Do Before Getting Pregnant, followed by Have A Really Embarrassing Vegas Story and Drink A Beverage That Was Previously On Fire, so I feel like maybe I should have been more specific. Maybe my list should have said My Very Own Washing Machine That Actually, You Know, Launders, Spins and Doesn’t Leak Water All Over My Floor.

We bought the old washer four years ago when we suddenly found ourselves renting a house with hook-ups and the nearest laundromat twenty miles away. We paid $35 at a yard sale. I think we’ve definitely gotten our money’s worth out of that purchase, even including the $30 E spent replacing the water pump a couple months ago when we first considered buying a whole new machine. But there were so many other things to spend money on, cute things with teddy bears or little sailboats or smiling monkeys on them, why throw out something that was still working?

On Sunday, the machine stopped draining, and yet somehow still managed to leak a couple inches of water into the tray we had very wisely placed underneath. I decided it was time to send my $35 washer off to the Big Appliance Shop in the Sky. A quick trip to Bernie’s and one medium sized dent in our savings account later, the new machine was on it’s way. They delivered it Tuesday morning (and took the old one away, thank God). And now…WOW. Never in my life have I been this excited to do laundry. I washed every dirty article of clothing, bedding, towel and pillow in the house. And everything is so CLEAN. CLEAN AND NOT SMELLY! Not only is the machine (a GE Profile, for the record) super energy efficient (estimated yearly operating cost: $22), the dryer takes half as long as it used to now that the clothes go in with most of the water already spun out. And did I mention the CLEANING? Tuesday morning there was a really terrible stealth poopsplosion that resulted in yellow baby crap smeared across several articles of clothing and what I thought was a permanent stain on the changing pad cover. But my new washer was all “I GOT THIS” and the poop is GONE. It never occurred to me that the old washer was such a piece of crap it was actually failing to clean stuff and a new machine would improve my life this much. I feel like I’ve just discovered cheese or chocolate or yoga pants. Other magic features: a digital time remaining display, two presoak settings, and no agitator post in the middle – which means I can fit a whole comforter in the drum. Do you understand now why I’ve written an entire post about a washing machine?!

Now if only I could get E to agree to buy the matching dryer too…

Last night our sweet, cuddly co-sleeping arrangement suffered a severe setback when I reached down to pat the baby and came back with a hand covered in poop. Liquid, yellow poop. Are you enjoying your breakfast? Hopefully it’s not applesauce. Or pureed squash.

I suspect the poopsplosion had something to do with the FOUR times Baby Evan nursed last night, since he also peed so much his diaper stopped absorbing and it soaked into his swaddle. I think my nipple has officially become his nighttime security blanket more than as actual source of nourishment. He doesn’t nurse to sleep at bedtime but when he wakes up at night it’s so much easier to just feed him than to get up and rock and pace and shush and listen to him fuss and for the love of God just take the nipple already!  But when he’s latched on – even when he’s not hungry – he’s getting milk and all that food has to go somewhere. I would prefer if that somewhere didn’t include ON ME. And the sheets. And the mattress. AND ON ME. But whatevs. I doubt that’s the last nighttime poop incident we have in his life. Might as well get used to it.

The sad part of the story is all that pooping didn’t faze Baby Evan at all – he just rolled over onto his stomach so he didn’t have to lie in crap and kept on snoozing. So I had to wake up my peacefully sleeping baby at 6 am to get the poop cleaned off him. And the sheets. And the towel I keep by the bed for emergencies. AND ME. When, really, I could have just let him keep sleeping and dealt with the poopsplosion after the sun came up. I think that’s when you know you’re officially a parent – you actually consider the “lie in poop but get more sleep” option. Yes, dear pregnant readers, this IS what having a baby is really like.