I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought about sitting down to write this post, only to be pulled away by one thing or another, usually the persistent call of diaper duty.
I’m not gonna lie, I had some major anxiety about the whole diaper thing, never having changed one, unless you count the ones we changed on that doll in Baby Basics class. It turns out changing a diaper on a baby doll is to changing a diaper on a real baby as putting into a cup on your living room carpet is to trying to make a hole-in-one on the most diabolical miniature golf hole imaginable. Think of the winning putt at the end of “Happy Gilmore,” only with a windmill, a fire-breathing dragon and the potential to be squirted with various bodily fluids constantly hovering in the back of your mind.
OK, seriously, the diaper thing is not nearly as bad as I expected. Sure, there were some tense moments early on, and we were pretty ecstatic when the nurse came in our hospital room and changed one while we watched intently to see exactly how many ways we were doing it wrong, but you get the hang of it pretty quickly and you rapidly become desensitized to the idea of touching pee and/or poop.
With that said, there is one thing about diaper changing that really pisses me off (pun very much intended), and that’s when the little dude insists on going Nos. 1 and/or 2 while I am changing him or shortly after I have finished.
This seems to be some sort of reverse Pavlovian response, because he tends to hate getting his diaper changed, yet he has a propensity to crap within seconds of getting a new pair of pee pants, thus beginning the process anew.
If you’ve done a price check on Pampers anytime recently, you know this is a costly habit, but that’s not even the part that drives me crazy. The worst part is going in for the second diaper change, which irritates him to the point that you’re lining up the winning putt with the windmill of his legs churning at hurricane conditions.
In my efforts to combat this phenomenon, I have learned to identify what is commonly known as “the poop face,” which is the typical precursor to … well, it’s pretty self-explanatory. This is not a fool-proof method, though, because poops come in varying packages. Sometimes it’s one squirt, and sometimes it comes in three or four batches. Patience indeed is a virtue when it comes to poop.
And, again, I’m not gonna lie. Sometimes I jump the gun and change the diaper before the last squirt, and upon assessing the size of said squirt, decide to let it ride for a while. If that makes me a bad dad, then so be it.
In the past couple of days, though, my anxiety about poop has been replaced by a pee problem. I thought I had a developed a great method for dealing with the occasional golden shower with my patented triangle technique in which I hold a blanket or burp cloth with the hand that’s holding his feet, creating a drape to contain the shower.
The little dude has found ways to penetrate my forcefield several times in the past couple of days, though, once shooting a stream over the top of the blanket and once squirming around until he had the device aimed sideways and was able to shoot a stream directly at my leg.
Fun times.
I’ve always said it’s better to be pissed off than pissed on. Never gave much thought to the notion of being both.
Too funny!!!!