Most of the time I spend with my daughter does not have much to do with poop.
In fact, prior to the evening past, I could count on one hand the number of times that we’ve had some mishap with a poorly aligned diaper, or perhaps a diaper that has “runneth over”. However, last night may go down in history as the most disastrous fecal-related incident that I have ever known.
Those with delicate constitutions may want to skip the next couple of paragraphs.
I was alone that night as Chris was out for orchestra practice, so it was just me and baby girl. The night was going pretty well, the girl was in good spirits for the most part. There was no warning of things to come; nothing really could have prepared me for what was going to happen during bath time. I mean, you just don’t read about events like this in all those baby books you get as a first-time parent.
Bath time started out innocently enough: Filling her big plastic tub with warm water, her toys floating aimlessly in the rising flood. It was time to chase down the ankle biter and strip her down for the tub. And strip her down I did! Diaperless, she screeched and panted and scooted down the hallway, back towards the nursery. I chased her, eliciting yet more breathless giggles.
Scooping her up, I walk back down the hallway with a squirmy, kicky, naked baby. I laid her down on the bathmat for only a moment as I turned to pull a towel out of the closet.
That was when I smelled it.
At first, I thought it was just her passing gas. My daughter, farting up a storm in the schooled tradition of a drunk frat boy. But this. This was stronger.
I turned back to pick her back up and…
SHIT. WAS. EVERYWHERE.
I dropped the towel I was holding to snatch her hand, which was literally milliseconds from placing a gob of poo into her pie hole. Poop was all over the bathmat, on the side of the bathtub, on the floor, all over the baby. It was pretty much my single worst nightmare of parenting, and it was there in full, odious technicolor.
Imagine this: You, trying to keep a shit-covered baby from squirming all over the place, “spreading the wealth” as it were, AT THE SAME TIME you are desperately trying to reach for ANYTHING to clean up all of that poop or at the very least CONTAIN IT. On top of all that, you also have to also keep her from PUTTING HER OWN WASTE INTO HER MOUTH.
New parents, let my example be a warning to you: If you are going to bathe your baby, PLEASE remember to keep the diaper fully locked in the upright position. Unless of course you are okay with pressure washing the inside of your bathroom and your baby.
There just isn’t enough bleach in the world to make that bathmat feel clean again.