It is currently 10.02pm on Sunday night. It is only now, a
full 12 hours later, that I can bring myself to recount the horrific events of
this morning.
It started as many Sunday mornings do since we had the
little one. Woken at 3.30am nappy change, bottle, blah blah blah.
Somehow I’d managed to get the monster back to bed for a few hours
extra kip and was finally awoken at a rather leisurely 9.30am by the sound of
the dummy hitting the floor followed by cute gurgerly/screaming noises coming
from her room. Time to get up.
Now in hindsight I should have approached the cot with
slightly more caution. It did dawn on me just before I went to bed that I
hadn’t changed any dirty nappies that day. I dismissed these worries with a
casual “oh well, lucky me!”
This was a foolish foolish mistake.
On getting nearer the cot, I detected the faint whiff of crap.
“Nothing to worry about”, I told myself. I’ve changed a thousand nappies and up
to this point each one had gone pretty smoothly. I approached this one with the
same confidence of a man who had yet to experience the true horror of what was
about to happen.
I first noticed that all was not well when upon unbuttoning
the baby grow there was some definite seepage. Perhaps seepage is the wrong
word… more of a brown rim.
Now at this point you would have thought that the sensible
thing to do would be to stop, restick the nappy and locate the baby wipes.
I did not do this.
A decision that I will regret FOREVER!
No, instead I ploughed on regardless. Don’t ask me why. All
I can think is that the pure unfiltered stench of shit that was invading my
nasal cavities had somehow impaired my ability to think clearly. I was now lost
in a sticky brown fog of crap with a slight aroma of asparagus smelling piss
for good measure.
I should point out that my little bundle of joy had also
decided that today was going to be the day when lying cutely on the changing
mat was not an option. Instead she had taken to wriggling uncontrollably and
somehow arched her back to such an extent that there was a very real
possibility of her hair becoming stuck to the trail of shit that had enveloped
her back.
In the ensuing battle she managed to create a skid mark the
entire length of the changing mat that obviously needed to be stepped in. This,
she duly obliged.
So, I now have shit overflowing from the nappy, smeared up
her back and over the changing mat and now it’s all over her feet, I still
don’t have any bloody wet wipes!
It is at this point that I spot them on the counter. I move
with the kind of speed Usain Bolt would have been proud of and manage to make
it back to the changing mat before the little sod had the chance to roll off.
At last the tables are turning. I have the upper hand. I
have the power of the wet wipe!
It took no fewer than 16 wet wipes dear reader, 16! It
seemed never ending! As soon as one part of her arse was clean then she’d roll
in another bit. She had become a revolving shit machine with arms.
It’s worth mentioning that we have our changing mat on our
fluffy shag pile rug. It’s been like this ever since the day she rolled off the kitchen
counter when I had my back turned. Again in hindsight a shag pile rug was a
foolish place to have it. Remarkably though Not a single fleck of shit has made
it onto that rug. A record, I am proud of to this day.
After a good 5 minutes of her rolling around squirming,
screaming, trying to put her hands in it and me trying not to vomit into the
shagpile, I finally managed to get her clean. New nappy on followed by the baby
grow.
It is at this point that I realised the fallout from the
nappy had not been contained. There had indeed been seepage.
Baby grow off.
This particular baby grow was the type that buttons from the
back, thus making life that little bit more difficult. It had only been on
about two hours as it was (She had decided to wipe up milk with her elbows
during breakfast). Anyway a replacement for the replacement was needed.
After what seemed like hours, I changed the baby grow and she was finally clean and shit
free!
At this point I notice her gazing lovingly into my eyes the way only
a daughter can.
However, my feelings of love for her changed when her gaze
changed from “I love you daddy” to “I haven’t finished with you yet arsehole!”
“What more could she possibly have in mind?” I pondered desperately.
Before I had time to contemplate this further She managed to spit her dummy
into a high looping arch, from the changing mat, over the shag pile before it
landed… Yes,you guessed it…. into the now steaming heap of shit that was her
nappy.
The unfortunate dummy
I love you too darling.
