“Bay-bee”

September 4, 2007 on 11:03 am | In Bett's, Funny Kid Stories | No Comments

I have gotten most of my “motherhood training” from watching my own mother, one of the benefits of being an older sibling. I also received more hands-on training when babysitting a few two- and three- year olds, but nothing in any of that experience had ever led me to believe that I would deal with fecal matter (in odd places) as much as I seem to do as a mother. Perhaps I did not take care of enough boys, but I certainly do not have any recollections of either of my younger sisters smearing their wastes around their crib, or relieving themselves in the bathtub, or removing their diapers and playing with its contents (although there is this myth that when I was a very young child I once found the pre-/un-digested grapes from our cloth diapers and was helping myself to them, while my father lay on the bed three feet from the diaper pail and read a book, completely unaware of what was transpiring within his arm’s length; but that could not possibly be true). If anything, my sisters were easy on my mother, and if they did not use a toilet or a diaper, they did their messes outside (and occasionally covered them up with rocks, which my father would hit while mowing the lawn…)

Today I was gifted with six-and-a-half minutes of free and alone shower time. That means no interruptions for six-and-a-half minutes. No one had to go potty, no one felt they needed to join me because they were feeling insecure, no one was hungry or thirsty, no one dropped something they couldn’t reach—for SIX-AND-A-HALF MINUTES. It was delightful. As I was exiting the bathroom, though, I heard Eli whine (not an unusual occurrence). I asked Hannah why Eli was unhappy, thinking that perhaps she had taken something from him. She told me he was poopy.

Eli wears diapers. They are not transparent. I wondered how she knew he was poopy. With more than a little trepidation, I rounded the corner to the living room… and there stood Eli, on the fireplace saying, “Bay-bee, bay-bee, bay-bee” over and over with a great deal of panic in his voice. He—or rather, his bottom—was no longer wearing his diaper or pants, though his right foot still was. I stood for a few seconds, trying to wrap my mind around what I was seeing. I wondered why Eli was so concerned with his baby when his bottom half was clearly full of poop and—I would think—of greater importance than a doll. He started shaking his burdened right foot in greater panic. I remembered that “poopy” and “baby” sound exactly the same in his mouth. His cloth diaper covers are a little too small, and the velcro on one side had released itself, which caused the other side to ball up and slide down his leg, leaving his posterior woefully unprotected. The new diaper covers are being shipped.

Eli bathed and cried until he was clean and dressed and cuddled. Then I spent the next few minutes attempting to correct his pronunciation (it came out “poopy” once!) while I scrubbed smeary excrement out of fireplace bricks. Tile, porcelain, linoleum, walls (with flat paint), clothing, belly buttons, and crib bars are much easier surfaces to deal with, though the bricks were not near as bad as carpet. I guess this is one fewer surface to de-poop on the list. I wonder how many surfaces I have yet to experience.

And this is only the second child!