Hey, whaddya know, it was a dead tie between poop and sleep! Poop had the lead going into yesterday afternoon, so that’s the one I have ready for today, but we really gotta talk about sleep this week, too. Stand by!
I’m about to put Lucas down for a nap, and I catch a whiff of eau de rotted blueberries. Time for a diaper change. (Aside: my sniffer seems to be on the fritz. Either his shite don’t stink, or life in a house with four XY chromosomes has indelibly damaged my sense of smell. I think I’m okay with either option.)
Ahem, anyway – diaper change. I flip him onto his back on the change mat on the floor and try to keep him there. Lucas is hell bent on escape. I finally manage to divert him with a colourful block. My son, he is. “Oh, pretty shiny block… ”
Not only does he stink, but he’s leaked through onto his undershirt and his pants. Oh joy. I pull open the diaper and try to hold his feet with one hand and divert his flailing arms with the other, while using my third arm to keep him from flipping over and my fourth arm to actually change the diaper.
Missing at least two of the required arms, I don’t move fast enough to catch the block as it lands with an unsavoury splat in the middle of the poopy diaper. I try to hold his kicking legs by the ankle in one hand while doing at least a passing cleaning of the block with a diaper wipe. One foot wriggles free and stomps down, of course, into the poopy diaper.
I go into triage mode, deciding the block is clean enough for the time being but something must be done to prevent further spread of the poop. I yank the foul thing out from under him (why must raisins do that in a dirty diaper?) and put it aside. I peel off the poopy sock, which has brushed in two places up against his leg, and swipe him with half a box a few wipes. All of the wipes, in fact. The wipe box is empty, there is still poop to be cleaned, and the crate of backup wipes is upstairs. Sigh. I take a clean diaper from the basket and do my best to finish the job. (Aside: another excellent use for clean diapers? Sopping up spills on the carpet. My brother showed me this one when he splashed a full glass of red wine onto our carpet last year. Press the clean diaper into the carpet until all the excess liquid is absorbed, then scrub the stain with a diaper wipe. Works great on spilled coffee, too!)
Lucas, who has not stopped wriggling madly throughout this exercise, is still hell bent on escape. Every time he senses even a momentary diversion of my attention, he makes a break for it. Now stripped naked, in the instant it takes me to look up and put my hands on another clean diaper and bum cream he manages to flip over, get to his hands and knees and start crawling away. He is less than an inch away from getting his hands on the dirty diaper from which he has been recently relieved when I intervene. He howls indignantly as I wrestle him back into something resembling a prone position.
Eventually, I get him wrapped in a clean diaper and manage to get most of the diaper cream off his fingers (I’ll leave it to you to figure out how that happened) before he manages to get it into his mouth or eyes.
I set him free (and happily mostly naked) a careful distance from the mess behind me and turn just in time to see the cat walk without hesitation directly through the centre of the still-open dirty diaper, leaving a trail of poopy cat prints across the carpet…
Wow, and you managed not to fling anything around? What a Zenmother you must be! 🙂
I used to have to resort to changing them on the floor, flinging one leg over their torso to hold them still so I could use both hands to deal with the mess at the business end.
Yep, my hubby developed the feet-for-holding, hands-for-changing thing into a fine art. I apparently don’t bend that way, and am limited to two hands. Don’t know how daycare folks do it, with say, four kids in diapers.
But the frustration of the cat getting into the act would have probably bumped me over the edge.
I love how the situation just escalates. And the image of the cat walking right through the mess, but being unable to stop it. I can almost hear the slow motion “Noooooo!”
OH NOOOOOOO. LOL that sounds FUN.
Ditto what Lasha says…I cannot stop laughing (and, believe me, I feel your pain!).
You write with such description and wit!
OMG so happy that wasn’t me. Think I would have thrown the baby out with the diaper.I am so sure the cat would not live to see another sunset.
Aw c’mon! did that REALLY happen like that? The cat too? Craziness. And we sign up for this!
Two words. Duct Tape. 😉
Too funny. Does anyone know how to make poop a little firmer? We don’t live in a house were we have to eat pruns every time we have some cheese. Max’s diapers are beyond messy and always have been. I would love to see the day when a lovely little turn sits in his diaper instead of the mess that spreads all the way up his back. And he’s nearly two!! I am now looking for ways to bung him up.
Oh, the glamour of motherhood.
What I want to know is how my one-year old manages to out-muscle me during diaper changes? Many a time she has scrambled away, dirty ass and all. Fun.
still giggling…brought back some all too messy memories of our own diaper dances All that and a cat to boot! You sounded as though you were so calm throughout, must be the sleep deprivation?
Oh dear.
*hugs*
Laughing WITH you. I have so completely been there, except for the part about the cat.
I’ve been there .. well not quite, we don’t have a cat.
I’ve come to realize that if I change the wee one her on the change table (even though she outgrew it long ago … she’s almost two) there are no attempts for escape or flipping over. Anywhere else, and it’s game on.