Milestones the Baby Books Miss: Bibbing
Bibs serve multiple functions throughout infancy. At first, they help catch spit-up. They are quite inadequate to this task, since spit-up goes all sorts of places besides immediately below the chin. But one puts them on in a show of good faith. (I still recall with some bitterness when my eldest nephew, now five, celebrated his first Christmas by nailing my brand-new Pendleton wool skirt--even though someone else was holding him! Fortunately the skirt seems to have survived.)

Later on, bibs will become necessary for catching stray food particles when the solid food process begins. (My nephew got his due back and more when I tried to feed him later in life.)

In between these two times, one reaches the Unending Drool point. At this point, bibs are a sort of diaper on the top end to absorb an unending stream of dampness before it soaks through everything in sight.

Last night DOB inspected D1 and decreed we had reached this point.

While on the topic of my niephlings, that reminds me that my sister-in-law would always laugh at my inadequate diapering skills. She would have had convulsions had she seen that, despite two months of practise, I somehow diapered D1 without even bothering to attach the tab on one side. Fortunately no calamities ensued. I really do much better with cloth diapers.