When I was in the hospital with my eldest, still stuck in bed with a catheter, my husband had to change her first diaper. I was groggy and tired and watching from across the room as my husband fumbled into his first diaper changing experience.
He set her down and got everything ready. Then, he opened the diaper. “Aughhhhhhhh!” He started screaming. “Oh! Oh! It stinks! Oh, chou!” he shouted. “Chou” means “smell” in Chinese. Suddenly, I couldn’t stop myself. I burst into hysterical laughter. 😛
He was making very animated faces, and with his screaming, I just laughed and laughed at his misery. Sorry, honey. But I had the pleasure of being carved up to get our kid, so there you go.
It wouldn’t be the last time our eldest got him, though. 😐
A few months later, when we were both getting better at this whole parenting thing, we were in our kitchen cooking up some lunch. The baby was in the crib, and suddenly, as babies tend to do, she started to cry. “I’ll go,” he told me since I was busy cutting up meat.
I kept at it in the kitchen and then heard a shriek, like a girl. Alarmed, I ran out of the kitchen to discover the shrieking was my husband. “Ahhhhhh! Help!” he screamed. He had both hands in the air, and our daughter was crying on the diaper mat in the crib.
“What’s wrong?!?” I called back as I ran toward them. And then I saw it. Apparently, our little pooper had pooped, so he was changing her diaper. Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t done pooping. And she’d pooped right into his hand, some gross breastmilk-style baby poop.
He was paralyzed with fear. He didn’t want to spread the poop around and wasn’t sure where to begin cleaning up the mess. I brought him some paper towels and sent him off to scrub his hands ferociously while I finished helping our daughter, but not before laughing so hard my sides ached.
I’d get mine, though. It would just take a few years.
My youngest was a sweet little baby indeed. But at night, my husband couldn’t sleep and have the energy for work. So he’d sleep on the floor in our eldest’s room on these types of nights.
She must have been about 3 months old at the time. I remember it was 2 or 3 am, and she woke up crying. I nursed her, and as I was feeding her, I heard a large poop-splatter sound. Yuck.
So, when she was done, I rounded up the changing mat and my caddy of essentials for changing her. She looked at me with her little eyes, such a sweet thing. And as I started to change her, I realized her poop was pretty messy. It had gotten a little on her pajamas, and I winced.
“That’s ok. Mommy’s gonna have you all cleaned up in a…PLOOOOP THRRRRRPPPPPPPTTTTTTT!!!!!”
Oh. Dear. Lord. Without any warning, she expelled a stream of liquid-hot poop right at me. It was my turn to emit a high-pitched scream, except no one came to my rescue. I stood there for a moment, trying to decide which part of the epic poop spraying I should clean first.
It was everywhere, and my husband wasn’t coming to my rescue. I could hear him snoring away. It was up to me now. 🙁
I first started with the baby, getting her ready to bathe quickly. As I wiped her off first, I tore off my clothes and shoved them into our washing machine. I got the baby bathed and redressed, I placed her in the crib, and then I turned into a one-woman HAZMAT team cleaning up the surrounding walls and floor from the poop explosion. Then I finally took my shower.
And you know what I found after that? The baby was in the crib, holding her feet and cooing. So hard to stay mad at that little face!
My husband laughed and laughed when he found out, but soon after that, she spit up right on his face, which evened the score.
In any event, messes like these will take place, so please, find the humor in them and be ready to tell your sweet baby when she’s bigger. She’ll love it!
Leslie Berry lives with her husband and two young daughters in Los Altos, California, where she loves helping other moms get comfortable with motherhood and embracing the insanity with facts peppered with laughs.
She loves eating too much sushi, exercising, and jamming out on her Fender. Read more about Leslie here.
