For all of you who gave me some words, themes, ideas to
break me out of my blog funk… THANK YOU! Here is the first of the commenter-inspired posts. And BTW, they will not necessarily be written
in the order they were suggested because… um, well, my brain doesn’t work that
way. I must follow the muse! Even when the muse is me pestering you guys for ideas. (And except for those moments when I’m being
all Type-A and stuff. Then the muse goes
to the spa.)
I thought I’d start with an easy one and tell you about my worst diaper disaster, inspired by Charlie. It is also the best diaper story because it is not about my son, but about my
youngest brother so I get to humiliate him on the web! Mwah ha ha!
So here’s the back story… my youngest brother, aka “the
kiddo”, is 13 years younger than me. (I
have three brothers: 1 older, 2 younger. FYI.) I love my parents but they
can be a tad self-absorbed, and when I was younger this seemed to especially
happen in bouts. Shortly after the kiddo
was born my parents went through one of these intense periods where they did a
lot of “self-growth” activities and classes and so on. So I was left to babysit my brothers a lot. (Different era back then… there were latchkey kids, it was OK to leave
your kids home alone, if you could dial a phone and knew your neighbors by name
it was assumed a kid could get help if needed. Whatever.)
On one of these occasions after school my kid brother was
taking a nap and I was hanging out with my bff Dawn downstairs. It was about time to check on the kiddo so we
both started to walk upstairs. At least
I think that was what we were doing; the events that followed blocked
everything preceding “the discovery” from memory. But this
I do remember clearly… we were laughing over some adolescent joke as we walked
down the hall, we reached the bottom of the staircase and this stench rolled towards us like a tank truck. My bff got a horrified look on her face as I
yelled, “What’s that smell?!” and tore up the stairs like an Olympic
sprinter. (I really could sprint up the
stairs back then. Ah, youth! I miss you
babe.)
I burst into the kiddo’s room to see him, sitting there amidst
the tousled linens with a splayed open diaper and… his masterpiece. He had finger-painted almost the entire wall
next to his crib with shit. He had crap
smeared all over the crib, he had poop up and down his torso, he had shit in
his hair. The little bugger had
obviously been awake for quite some time and, being curious about his new
discovery, hadn’t made a peep. Even as I
watched he turned away from my dramatic entrance, dipped his fingers back into
that poop and continued to paint. The
look of concentration on his 1-year-old face was that of an artist.
My friend arrived behind me, took in the room at a glance,
and said, “Ummm, I’ll give him a bath.” (And that, my friends, is a
measure of why she was my bff! Anyone else would have bailed!)
She did get the easier end of the job though. There was significantly less shit all over my
brother than was on me by the time I cleaned everything up. (I did a damn good job, too, if I do say so
myself. You can tell… when the smell is
gone, you did a good job.) My parents
and my other two brothers all managed to arrive home way after the event
unfolded. Punks.
Now my dear brother is 23 in all his gothy-gabber
glory. And kiddo, if you’re reading
this, remember… if anyone hassles you on the street of the city, wondering what
went wrong… it was that early exposure to shit. And not all those stories about the Monkey Farm and the Target Alligator
I told you. (I know you’ve been blaming
me.)
Is it any wonder I waited until my 30s before I had a kid of
my own? I SO KNEW what I was getting into!
– the weirdgirl
Oh yes, I had a wall painter many years ago.
Good for you on the cleanup. You’re right, the bath part is much easier. As I remember, I ran the shower to get the worst of it first.
I would have made my parents come home immediately. Or become emancipated.
But you’re right. That is a TRUE friend.
I’ll bet your brother is SO glad that this is an anonymous blog! This is a very funny story, indeed. I have to admit that I’ve never had this kind of experience with poop. With vomit, yes, but not poop.
A new medium, indeed! Your brother started well before the time of buildings made of corn, sculpture from trash, and pictures made of Peeps. How modern!
Ann – yes, I’ve learned that trick since having my own. Not that my son is a fan of the shower yet.
Chag – trust me, if I could have made my parents come home I would have. Lousy cell phones… not being invented yet!!
KC – I actually have much more embarrassing stories I could tell about my brother(s). Hmmm… future posts? (But I’ll wait till after Christmas, no sense ruining my gift score.)
Jade – he always was rather innovative (nder my tutelage, of course).