The Diapers and the Damage Done...

Changing an infant’s diaper is brutal. Couple it with changing the diaper of a three year old at the same time and you feel like you’re in the middle of an episode of keystone cops.

First you change the infant. She’s daughter #2 because she came second down the “turnpike.” You place both of them next to each other on the floor of their bedroom. Now it’s a race against the clock to keep both of them happy – or at least not crying and miserable.

So you operate at warp speed. You peel off the onesy with it’s complicated button pattern and then you peel off the diaper. You try your best to remember what button fits with what button hole but you’re sure you’ll forget because around the crotch area it gets a little complicated. Trust me, it does. Usually your infant’s dump has the consistency and color of rancid squash and today’s edition is no exception. So you lift her legs like a Thanksgiving turkey to scoop out the poo from her crack. It’s around this time you think to yourself, “Christ she’s fat.” Michelin-man legs. No tone. Rolls with no butter. You console yourself with the fact that your first daughter was pretty fat too, though not this bad, and that as soon as she started crawling, walking and actually using those leg muscles, that she dropped half a ton.

Daughter #2 has yet to reach that stage so she hasn’t been “chiseled out of her fat jacket” as you like to tell people daughter #1 was. Now you’re trying to keep #2 occupied and happy and you feel like you’re doing a song and dance just to keep her from crying. Smiling and mouthing unintelligible words because you want her to forget you’ve got your hand all up in her nether-regions. Then it’s back on with the diaper and as you try to put the onesy back on you see the big squash colored stain on the back and you realize she poo’d through her diaper. Now you’re on one knee, rummaging through her drawer because the wife puts all the kids clothes away and you’ve got no clue where her next onesy is. Finally you find one that could be onesy pajamas but you don’t really give a crap as long as they have buttons. You force her arms and legs into it and you button everything up. You’re sure half the buttons are in the wrong button holes but hell, you feel like a rock star anyway. You’re thrilled that daughter #1 is still happy and not a fusspot because trying to fit two arms and two legs into a onesy when she’s writhing around is the reason they invented straight-jackets for adults…

Then you’re off to your older daughter who has waited patiently while you’ve managed not to maul her baby sister. Daughter #1 has also made a #2 and 50% of the time hers look like rabbit turds. You’re in luck. Today’s movement is long and strong but daughter #1 wants to pause and admire her dump as if she gave birth to it. She'll freak if you wrap it and toss it out without gazing upon her creation. So you lovingly show it to her, meanwhile daughter #2 is two feet away and starting to squawk…squawking is a prelude to crying and this is a must to avoid. You know that once the avalanche starts rolling downhill it never stops. If she starts crying now she may cry for 30 minutes straight and mom’s boob isn’t here to make the world right. Hell if mom’s boob, not to mention the rest of her, was on premises she’d be doing the changing anyway and you could be watching football like a man was meant to on a Sunday…

So you all admire daughter #1’s dump…then it’s wipe up time and she’s complaining because she has a rash “down there.” When you piss and poop in a diaper this happens a lot, trust me. So you want to wipe hard and fast like a window washer before lunch break but instead you have to operate in slow-mo with surgical precision while both daughter’s grunt. You want to tell daughter #1 that if she was potty trained like a lot of other girls her age neither of you would be dealing with her painful butt-rash but that’s another story and besides, you’d only make her cry.

So on goes the diaper, back on go the pants. Up comes the infant in one arm, up goes two poo diapers in the other and you make a pilgrimage to the toilet where daughter #1 insists on it being flushed and she’s going to do the flushing. The room looks like a war zone; clothes, diapers and wipes. But at least no one is sobbing and no one has lost a limb and you feel like you’ll live tear-free for at least the next 20 minutes of your life….and where the hell is your wife anyways???