So without a doubt the most exciting thing happening in my life right now is the imminent arrival of a tiny fashionista-in-training, my soon-to-be "niece" Eden, who currently resides in the abdomen of one Boho Chic Christy. We just found out that it is in fact a girl, which sent Christy and me both into a frenzy. The things we can plan now! The pink things to buy! We'd both been holding out until we knew the sex of the baby, but in the few days since my earliest suspicions were confirmed (I first declared this baby a girl way back on March 9, and I was THE ONLY vote for girl at the time. Take that, Y chromosome!), both of us have already been on a bit of a shopping spree, and we've already had several conversations about the baby shower I get the honor of throwing for her.
Let me tell you, I am pumped about this baby shower. Christy is (unsurprisingly) the first of my close friends to have children, so just as she was the wedding guinea pig, jumping the gun first at the ripe old age of 19, she now becomes the baby guinea pig as well, my trial run on all things infant. The difference this time being that at 24, I now have a much greater budget to work with than when I was trying to plan bridal showers on the $20 a week I got from my dad as a school-time stipend. So this go-round, I'm out for redemption. (Plus just the sheer joy of throwing a really awesome party for one of my besties.)
But workable budget notwithstanding, I'm nothing if not thrifty. So when we decided to hand-paint onezies as a craft at the shower, I started looking for the best place from which to purchase these, and throughout the course of my research, discovered that it's a little bit cheaper to buy plain white ones than to buy them pink (not to mention I've only found one brand so far that even comes pink in a multi-pack). Thus my genius plan: buy the white ones and dye them pink. But not with dye; too messy, too much trouble. I'll just throw them in the wash with something red; people who actually separate their whites and colors tell horror stories of the red sock that snuck in and turned an entire load of pristine whites into pretty-in-pinks. And for someone with my domestic skill, it's a wonder I don't do this accidentally every time I do laundry! (Actually, I'm not surprised--Shout Color Catchers are a wonderful invention. But without them? Talk about disaster potential!)
So yesterday, I decided to test my theory. I went to Wal-Mart and bought a 4-pack of white onezies and a super-convenient single pair of 50 cent red socks. (Really, I thought it would be harder to find them than that; does anyone still wear colored socks?) So I threw two of the onezies (in case this went horribly wrong) and one of the new red socks (so as not to waste all the dye on my first load) in the wash on hot water, a setting of our washer that hasn't been used...well, possibly ever. (It actually kind of made a sound like it was dying when it first kicked on.) And waited.
But in addition to not dying, the washer also didn't do any DYEing. You can imagine my surprise when the load finished, and I pulled out one red sock and two perfectly white onezies. Not a drop of pink anywhere in sight. How is that possible? A brand new red sock? Shouldn't I have been wringing red dye out of that thing when I pulled it out of the machine? Apparently not.
When I reported this outcome to Christy, she actually said she wasn't surprised it didn't work. Maybe the maternal instincts that supposedly kick in when you get pregnant include suddenly being a laundry genius, because honestly, it's a whole day later, and I still can't believe it. I mean, I did a regular load of laundry the day before, and being a particularly colorful load, I put in two of the aforementioned Color Catchers instead of one, and they both came out purple, full of loose dye. So how, how did my red sock not do any of my intended damage to the white onezies? You'd think I dropped them in there with a capful of bleach.
So all that to say, that the first tiny step of planning my first baby shower did not exactly go as anticipated. But there are still two months of planning time in which to not be vanquished by the fact that I'm even bad at being bad at laundry.
And maybe to buy some fabric dye.
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