Our Family Used to Smell Nice
There are days with the baby that we just admit we’re not going to look or smell good. And there are days we decide to look nice and smell fresh that later become overwhelming. One of the first things Jeni said this morning was “I hope the baby doesn’t poop in church today.” It was like weather forecasting a baby storm. While we were having breakfast we heard a sad, gentle cry.
I gently raised my daughter from her rest in the crib to change her moderately wet diaper. My wife had fed her shortly before, so she was calm. I took off the old diaper while she laid on the waterproof changing pad. All of the sudden she started peeing. The changing pad did its job but the baby peed so much that the pee pooled up and reached her body, back, and neck. My wife came to the room and we maneuvered her out of the pee while I cleaned her up with $100 worth of baby wipes. The bath would wait until after church. Nearly done, we were shocked when the baby let out another fountain of pee. With more wipes and further folding of the crib bedding we got her fresh enough to go out in public. I adjusted my hopes for church from our baby-standard “arrive almost on time” to “arrive before it ends”
I threw her crib bedding in the wash and we sipped our now-cold coffee and chewed our now-cold breakfasts. I hung the sheets when they finished their “fastest possible wash” cycle and Jeni and I rushed down to the bus with a few moments to spare before this moderately- late-to-church option passed us by.
Our neighbor, who had been hoping to meet our baby since her birth, found us in the entry and we decided to talk instead of catching the bus. We were happy to chat with her and figured we’d start our day after the talk. When the neighbor left Jeni asked me how many bottles I put in the baby bag, laughing and pointing out that the first one had no rubber nipple. Two-thirds of the water had spilled and the baby diaper bag was soaked. The bottle was built with just the base, the sealing ring, and the bottle topper. We had no clue how much of our emergency diaper supplies were soaked along with the bag.
Jeni took the baby to the bus while I went to find the rubber nipple. The neighbor knocked on our door with a baby gift and I chatted with her a bit in the living room. In my faltering Spanish I told her I was back home looking for a “bottle titty” None were sanitized so I boiled water and dropped one in. I grabbed two diapers just in case and left.
Back below I saw that I had missed the bus. Impossible to actually worsen my arrival time at this point I walked through the park to join my family at church.
A tiny bit into the sermon, Jeni and I felt very blessed by what our pastor was sharing. “Carry on despite discouragement and take heart”. Not long later, Jeni looked at me halfway through her feeding of the baby. “She pooped… a lot…. and she’s still pooping.” I took the baby downstairs and carefully carefully tried to get her changed before any poop got on the clothes. Impossible! The onesie got soaked in the massiveness of the poop and the pants got stained. I spent $100 more worth of wipes cleaning up my baby. Back up the stairs in the shame of her diaper-only outfit we looked at what we could do to clothe our little treasure. The emergency clothes we always packed were soaked. All that was left was a onesie hoodie that was supposed to serve as a coat.
We dressed her up in that onesie hoodie and I fed her what was left of her meal. She fell asleep in my arms while my church friend mopped the floor around my seat. The last one sitting in the sanctuary, I felt like he could have mopped me too. The last four hours had been full of every kind of waste liquid I could think of.
Jeni went downstairs, cleaned up the disaster I had left in the other room and joined me upstairs with the baby. We looked into her sleepy face. She was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen. No amount of bodily explosions could change it.
