Pam asked me a year or so ago to stop writing about poop, but an abnormal nightmare of a situation last weekend calls for an exception.
When I went in to greet Carson from his afternoon nap on Saturday, I screamed like a little girl.
Somehow during the course of his nap, Carson managed to remove his shorts and diaper. That would have been fine if it weren’t for the fact he had a blowout of nasty proportions at some point while he was asleep.
Probably because he was under a blanket, this was not visible in the video monitor, but as soon as I began walking up the stairs I could smell trouble. I assumed it was just going to be a terribly messy diaper.
However, what I walked into was different than anything I have ever seen in my three-plus years of parenting.
Carson was standing in his crib with poop-laden arms and hands extended for me to pick him up. It was everywhere — behind his ears and knees, on his stomach, arms, legs, hands and back and even between his toes.
Somehow, and this is still a mystery to us today, he managed to get some books in his crib with him and they, too, featured some interesting new “bookmarks”.
Amazingly, when I got to Carson, there was no crying, actually a few mischievous smiles and laughs that made matters even more disturbing for me at the time.
When I let out that high-pitch shriek, he only laughed harder, seemingly relishing the fact he had made a major mess and that it was getting a huge reaction from me. He knew what happened and that it was a big deal.
I didn’t even know how to begin to clean up this situation, but the fact he was seemingly enjoying this made matters a little easier.
There was no quick fix, and I was trying to think fast on my feet. Eventually I wondered: what would Pam want me to do here?
Surely, she wouldn’t want me to just flee the scene and pretend I didn’t see it (my initial instinct).
After examining him thoroughly (and fighting back that initial desire to run away), I scooped him up and headed directly for the bathtub. For a couple minutes, I debated just taking the garden hose to him like I do when my dogs get into something nasty. I decided on the tub instead.
At that time, I knew getting him clean would be the easy part, it was going to be the crib, books, sheets, wall and carpet that was going to be the larger challenge.
Fortunately, Pam rose to the occasion, taking care of the daunting chore of ridding the individual spindles on the crib from you know what.
I love the unexpected aspects of parenting, but I have to admit this was not one of the most beloved moments. However, it’s something we will never forget for sure.
Over the last few years, I have noticed injuries are inevitable during parenting, and I’m not talking about the kids.
Sure, my boys turn up with any number of wounds along the way. There seem to be a couple new ones every week or so, but I’m talking about us parents here in this instance.
With my boys, 3 years old and 21 months, there’s a lot of the proverbial “heavy lifting” and at times there can be some mishaps along the way that cause a pinch here, an ache there and bruises all around.
I know it’s crazy to say, but I’m pretty sure I wake up each morning sore because of parenting.
I’m close to positive that last year I had double hernia surgery because of too many rough goofball sessions with my kids.
Pam, for her part, suffered a herniated disk in her lower back a couple years ago, most likely due to carrying our bundles of joy around.
I remember thinking on Monday morning of this week how sore my legs were and how I could barely lift one arm above my shoulder.
Then I remembered it had to be from the weekend with the kids. Apparently, throwing Beckett up in the air dozens of time in the pool is not good for my left arm.
One night last week, Pam noticed a couple gnarly bruises on my legs and questioned how they came about.
I actually had no idea, but my guess was they were from Beckett jumping off my legs in the pool and from some rough kicks during swimming lessons.
That same night I noticed a sizable scrape on my big toe, which I later realized came from when Beckett dropped a tractor on my foot.
This is where some challenges arise. Oftentimes, kids inflict pain on their parents, unintentionally. And I’m not talking about the mental anguish that goes along with this daily adventure. To stave off a huge meltdown on their part, most parents try to play off the pain when their kids accidentally hurt them.
That’s apparently what I did when he dropped this tractor on my foot because I barely remembered it until it started showing up on my toe. It was one of those bite the lip moments and try not to show it hurts.
My most recent injury, which happens to affect my work on the keyboard, is a jammed index finger that’s too swollen as of this writing to pull.
That stems from a mishap involving giving the boys some helicopter rides the other night. Fortunately, neither of them got hurt.
