A Diaper Change Gone Awry

We had an incident the other night that involved me rolling around the floor in sheer agony and Ada peeing diaperless in the living room. I try to be the eternal optimist in all situations, for example, I don’t think Florida will destroy Alabama this weekend like many people are saying, but I can think of only one good thing about our little situation…Ada peed on the hearth rather than carpet.

The evening started out very ordinary. LB was out for the night molding young minds and Ada and I had the run of the house. We had already eaten dinner, Ada was already bathed, and we were getting a little playtime in before bedtime. When it was time to take Ada upstairs, I was going give her a nice fresh diaper. For some reason that I have yet to figure out, she would rather sit around in the products of her excretory system instead of getting diaper change. So naturally, she opposed my idea.This is when the night got interesting.

I laid Ada down on her back, stripped her old diaper, and went to grab the new one. Problem was, it was sitting about 2ft out of my reach. I stretched to grab it. With my back now turned, Ada saw her chance to make her get away. In her haste to flee the scene while I was looking away, she dropped kick me right in the bathing suit area. Instant pain shot through me that rendered me motionless. I haven’t taken a shot like that since the time I was 6yrs old and forgot the breaks on my new bike were on the handlebars rather than pedaling in reverse. I hit a storage shed going full speed.

I remember way back when Ada was only a few months old and we were giving her baths in an infant tub, her feet were always flailing wildly about. She’d be kicking the sides of the tub so hard, yet so unreactive that I sometimes thought she may have some disease that numbed pained sensors in her feet. The same thing held true these many months later as well. I was able to muster up enough energy to roll over to see what she was doing. She had made her way to the fireplace and was staring at me with a guile grin on her face, naked as the day she born and showing no remorse for the events that had just transpired, physically or mentally. I knew I had to get a diaper on her as quickly as possible but I couldn’t pick myself up. I remember lying there and thinking, “well if anything does happen to make it’s way out, at least she isn’t on the carpet.” Then, as if my thoughts had some how telepathically triggered it, I saw the stream, the floodgates had opened. Ada didn’t even acknowledge it, she was still staring at me rolling around on the floor like a fish out of water and, I think, laughing on the inside.

As the puddle grew larger and larger, I knew I had to man up and act quickly. I was able to stagger over and pick her up before she started skipping rocks in the pond she just created. This time she let me put the diaper on her with no issues. I think she felt bad for what she had done. I picked her up to snap her onsie and she said “night night”. I told her she was exactly right and we limped our way straight upstairs.

I came back downstairs and laid on the couch for a while, to let the pain subside and gather my thoughts. I learned my lesson that night. Since, I’ve created myself a simple mental checklist to go through before each diaper change from here on out. Before I lay Ada down, I am sure to put a diaper in my back pocket. Also, if there is a change of clothes involved, I lay them out on the floor, just like my mom used to do for me in kindergarten, right beside the spot I plan on changing Ada. This way I know everything is always in reach and I will never have to take my eyes off of her mid diaper change. To say that I am a bit gun shy when changing her diaper now, would be an understatement.

I would advise any other dads out there to heed my advice. That is unless you wear a cup while changing your little one, which I did seriously consider as I was recovering on the couch that night. These two steps may seem simple enough, but they can save you from unnecessary insufferable pain. Dads, consider yourself warned.