This Dadventure was actually posted on my old family blog almost 2 years ago, but it’s a goodie. I just finished re-reading it and it brought back lots of memories – not all of them pleasant. I may decide to re-post some of those older ones, so I’ll need the space to allow for their chronology. Without further ado…
Well, it’s Monday.
That’s about the best thing I can say about this morning. Nothing went right. To begin with, our alarms either didn’t go off or were turned off. I’m claiming the former but knowing in my head it was the latter. I can’t really say since my mind is usually in a semi-conscious state until after a shower. By semi-conscious I mean in an alternate reality belonging to a parallel universe in which I’m still sleeping. Plus there’s also lots of tacos there.At any rate…So we get up late. Time for after-burner mode. (The kids just loooooooove being rushed in the morning.) Thankfully the kids were largely cooperative and got up pretty quickly. Two got up, did his business in the bathroom (I’m referring to brushing his teeth and combing his hair, people! This is a family blog…), and was ready for clothes. One, to her credit, was also pretty speedy, at least by standards that apply only to her and myself. Three was…well, he’s not very involved in the whole process in a, how do I say it, “self-directed” way. Though, in truth, he’s awfully good at self-directing his diaper to become full of the smellies (more on that later). The Boss got the long straw for showering, which is really only fair since she has to work around real people and I work around voices on a phone that supposedly belong to real people.Being the health-conscious father I am, an expansive breakfast selection was offered to the children. There were Pop-Tarts, Nutri-Grain cereal bars, peanut butter flavored meal bars, and cereal. Bacon was an initial offering, but when we didn’t even have time for the 6 minutes it takes to cook it in the microwave, it was removed as an option. Cereal ended up being a no-go too since the milk would have spilled in the car. Three got a handful of ‘puffs’ (or as I like to call them, “Baby Silencers”…) to tide him over while I concentrated on the kids who could take orders.Snacks were supplied, water bottles were filled, backpacks were loaded, and the children were dressed and polished. The diaper bag was topped off.Three was still eating his puffs. Silence is golden.I grabbed their bags and the keys and loaded up the truck. I came back upstairs to pick up the non-walker and corral the walkers. They opted for the peanut butter meal bars and got one on their way out. I selected one of those squeezy bags of fruit that you can ‘drink’ (i.e. squirt in your mouth) for Three. Everyone got in the car and to my surprise we were only leaving about 5 minutes after our normal time, which was absolutely astounding. I’m thinking of trying this routine daily in order to give me more sleep. I think we can even improve our time with practice…Don’t worry–I’m getting to the ‘smellies’ part.So I noticed as I carried Three down to the truck to leave for school that he smelled. Bad. We were running late though, so he had to deal with it. After dropping the kids off at school, I drove over to the sitter’s house. While in her driveway, I proceeded to feed Three his breakfast. Remember me saying ‘drink’ before? Yeah, well the kid literally drank the bag dry in two gulps. I wish I had brought three of them. I was just planning on squirting a bit into his mouth so he could actually taste it, but he drank it like apple juice. Whatever – he was happy and I was happy……until I remembered the smell. Oh yeah. Wonder if I should leave that for the sitter? Sigh. Kindness won out over laziness.Ever tried changing a baby on a car seat? One that slopes downward so that he just slides down toward the back and gets wedged in there? You should try it. It’s loads of fun. Turns out they don’t like wedging into the crack of the seat. And they wiggle. A lot. Kinda like Three did this morning. Me being the lazy person I am, I said to myself, “Self, I bet you can change this diaper on this incredibly awkward surface area with this incredibly wiggly baby without taking off his shoes and shorts!”Self is stupid.Shorts come down to ankles. Diaper gets unfastened. Ankles go up in the air. I remember the wipes pack isn’t opened, so I reverse the previous two steps. Open wipes pack. Redo steps 2 and 3. Gag. Proceed to use 6 wipes to remove poop from places I didn’t know existed. Boys have WAY more places to hide poop than girls. Finally the butt is clean and I pull out the offending Pamper. For some inexplicable reason, however, I decide not to close the diaper. Instead, fearing the dreaded wang-wetting, I quickly reach to grab the new diaper. Three decides at that very moment to push the aforementioned unsealed dirty butt cover off the car seat and out the car door. As it tumbled out of the car and into gravity’s caressing embrace, I fleetingly thought, “Man, this could be bad. I sure hope it lands bad-side up…”It did not.Instead gravity decided to first make it land bad side down on my step rail, then let it sliiiide off, do a complete flip again and land bad side down on the driveway. Honestly, Gabby Douglas has nothing on this Pamper.While I’m looking at the clean side of the diaper spread out on the pavement, I remember my bare-butt son. our eyes lock for a split second…Cue the pee-shooter.Now in hindsight, I should have been better prepared. I should have had forethought. I should not have stared at the diaper on the ground for those long milliseconds. And for the love of all that’s holy, I should NOT have used the outside of the diaper as a makeshift shield. “Hello? Hi, it’s Hindsight. Just for future reference, the inside of the diaper is the absorbent side. The outside is basically made of a high quality plastic polymer that can repel just about anything – including baby urine. Later.” Thanks, Hindsight – where were you this morning?!So now we have poop on the ground, poop on the ground, me lookin’ like a fool with the poop on the ground. The car seat is covered in pee. My hands are wet. The baby still needs another diaper and can’t figure out why I just said, “No, No, No!” and covered his junk with the wrong side of a diaper. Perfect time to cry, right?He agreed. Now he’s crying.I wrap him up in a fresh one, pull up his shorts, wipe the seat down. Somehow he didn’t get any pee on himself, so that was a plus. I grab some wipes and clean my step rail, then get a few more and get to work on the driveway. I got cleaned up and well sanitized somewhere in there as well. All done, I finally take him inside to enjoy the rest of his day. Then I had the good fortune to drive home with the smelly and wet diapers still in my car since I forgot to throw them away. Lucky me.Oh well, at least I get to scratch “clean driveway with baby wipes” off my bucket list. Can you say that? Didn’t think so.Boo-yah.
