Going From "Ewww" to "Oh Well"

Before I became a mother I used to think that women who sucked on their children's pacifiers and spit on their finger to wipe their children's smudges were gross. I still think its gross, but I can now be named among the guilty. I have sucked on my son's pacifiers, I have eaten his left over food, I have drunk his left over juice, and yes I wiped smudges by licking my finger and rubbing.
When I became a mom my idea of gross quickly transformed. At first I tried to be the perfect sterile mom, and there is nothing wrong with that except for it doesn't always work when you are exhausted and low on supplies. After I realized that I had resorted to the gross ways that I intended to avoid, I consoled myself by saying, "Hey it is almost as if we are the same person anyway. My germs are his germs and they are better than someone else's germs." That was the beginning of the end for me. I was sucking on his pacifiers and bottles to clean them, and eating his left over baby food, I particularly like the prunes. My excuse for eating his food was that I couldn't bare to waste it, and it is the truth. Waste is a terrible thing especially to a penny pinching mom like me.
The licking and scrubbing is more of a rarity with me. I try to always have a cloth diaper on me so that I don't have to resort to such things, but every now and then it happens. When you don't have what you need, you have to use what you do have. Mom's have hard enough jobs without having stuck up people sneering at them for taking care of their business the best way that they can. As mom's we do what we have to, and if anyone else doesn't like it OH WELL! This is not meant to be antagonistic because there are some things no one should ever do, but for those matters of preference people should just learn to say "oh well." I did as a matter of maintaining my sanity in those less than perfect situations.