As any blogger knows, (at least, I think they do, I’m new to this) sometimes you have to work for the posts and sometimes….well, sometimes, the posts come to you.
This Monday story includes things like naked babies, naked baby poop, and piles of puke. So if you’re not ready for this, then just don’t continue.
I wouldn’t blame you really. I mean, I wasn’t ready for it.
Some background information. (Don’t worry, I’ll make it interesting.)
Grandparents are in town, which is lovely and terrible. Lovely because they are wonderful people and the boys love them with an everlasting love. (I’m not kidding. Lincoln would pick Grandma over me at any juncture. I’m told it’s one of the perks of being a Grandma, because by the time you are one, you no longer have small, clinging children, so you have more everlasting love to give without freaking out that THEY NEVER LEAVE YOU ALONE AND THEY ALWAYS CRY AT RESTAURANTS AND YOU NEVER GET TO EAT YOUR FOOD.) That is an entirely different post, however. No lingering bitterness at all left over from our restaurant adventures from last night.
But visitors are also difficult because of my poor oldest child. You know that joke about how certain people gain weight when they just look at garlic bread/chocolate/pudding? Lincoln gets overtired the SECOND someone new walks through the door. Before they’ve even done a thing. So after three days of new people and difficultly falling asleep and being awakened by Eliot last night and FOUR CONSECUTIVE MELTDOWNS IN A ROW BY LINCOLN I decided that hunkering down and getting through was the way to go today. Doing one of those mornings where you equally know that you have to stay home and also that it will be the most terrible morning of your life.
Anyway. Eliot has been sleeping through the night, which is just a miracle of miracles and makes me glad to be alive and asleep. But last night he woke at 11, which is fine, babies backslide, two steps forward and such like that. So we gave him the bottle and he fell back asleep. But then he woke again at 1:30, and this time it was pretty obvious something was wrong, as he woke straightaway with his sad little scream.
So we checked the diaper and realized that he had pooped and had been sitting in it for a at least a few hours and his whole underside now looked as red as fire and was even starting to bleed in some places. So we patched him up as well as possible and all went back to sleep uneasily.
This morning I cancelled my appointment, not just because of Eliot but also because the mess that Lincoln was in was so astounding that I didn’t even want to meet one single human being with him in tow.
So I threw them all out in our yard today, taking off Eliot’s diaper and clothes to dry him out a little. We all gathered up the tiny seeds that are starting to fall from our avocado tree, and played in the piles of leaves it was dropping.
I was perfectly prepared for the inevitable peeing. It was why we were outside, after all. No diaper, just fresh, clean Hawaiian air. But then I looked over and wondered how Eliot got mud on his feet. And then I saw Mina licking and licking a spot on the concrete, and my brain still refused to put together the pieces, probably valiantly attempting some sort of self protection. Someone must have thrown out some meat fat or something. (On the concrete?)
But then my brain, marching onward despite the horror of the circumstances, realized that Eliot had pooped all over himself and the concrete and MY DOG WAS EATING IT.
You guys. I was not ready for this morning.
And then, as if that weren’t enough, Mina promptly starting heaving and puked up three separate piles over the space of the next few minutes, looking pretty shocked to discover that HUMAN POOP DIDN’T AGREE WITH HER DIGESTIVE SYSTEM.
Let’s take a short break to talk to Mina, shall we?
Mina. Please hear me. I know that the small human provides you with much food in the way of dropping things off of his highchair and laughing when you come running. But THAT IS ACTUAL FOOD. Also true: not every stinky pile of something on the side of the road when we take walks is delicious and edible. These are hard words to hear, I know, and I understand where you are coming from, since we rescued you from foraging on the streets of Okinawa, and you had to survive on fragrant tidbits that no one else wanted. But it’s the truth. And here’s another, since you often refuse food that won’t actually make you sick: sometimes the food that appears magically in your bowl IS ACTUALLY DELICIOUS AND GOOD FOR YOU.
I never thought that your eating problems would land us in this mess, Mina. This mess of three piles that I now have to clean up, and also the remnants of excrement left on Eliot’s feet.
I mean, what does one do when faced with such horrific circumstances? There may be a better than what I came up with, which was sit straight down and try not to think about the tasks ahead. That is until your baby starts heading curiously for the new “dirt piles” that magically came out of the dog, in which case you freak out, carried both children at arm’s length to the bathtub, turn on the water, and hope they don’t drown while you go back to clean up the dog’s mess.
And then you realize that it is only 8:08am and you do a little cry.
There may be a better way to deal with it. But that’s what I did.