Short and Sweet

For my first non-picture blog post (and believe me, you will thank me once you read further), I wanted to share a quick thought that I have had several times a day for the last 8 months or so…

I think that changing a boy’s diaper should be deemed an Olympic sport.

This is apparently old news to people who have (at least) two children of different genders and had their boys first.  They are pleasantly surprised at how much their daughters love to have their diapers changed – they giggle, coo, smile, sing and just generally make the activity an enjoyable experience (or as enjoyable as a diaper change could be).  Clearly I did not fully appreciate this time with Frances and naïvely assumed that all babies acted this way on the changing table.  And then came The Boy.

George can turn the seemingly minor event of a diaper change into the decathlon of baby activities.  Every.  Single.  Time.  First, there is the catching him phase.  This portion can last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes and can increase in difficulty depending on whether we are upstairs or downstairs when said phase begins (if we are downstairs, this phase actually morphs into two separate phases—catching him downstairs to funnel him upstairs and then catching him again upstairs once we have reached the top of the stairs that he insists on climbing himself).  

Once the catching phase is complete, there is the carrying him to the changing table phase.  As my poor arms (primarily shoulders) suggest, this phase is often accompanied by a round or two of biting, kicking, hair-pulling and scratching, particularly if George is hungry, tired or in the middle of playing with his big sister; in other words, nearly every time.  

Immediately subsequent to a successful carrying phase to the changing table comes the hardest phase of all – changing the diaper.  And I have discovered the hard way that the difficulty of this phase directly correlates with how messy George’s diaper is (aren’t you glad there are no pictures now?).  

First comes removing the dirty diaper as quickly but as neatly as possible while George stretches to see the activities going on in the hallway or the trucks/cars/buses driving outside of his window.  Then there is the necessary cleaning, diaper cream application and putting on the clean diaper while George arches his back, lifts up his legs, tries (and often succeeds) to roll over to his belly, or just generally makes it nearly impossible to finish the task at hand.  I am lucky in that George loves to read and will sometimes be pacified by the well-placed board book; but this only works if he isn’t already fired up from phases 1 through 3 to focus on anything other than endlessly squirming.

Somehow the diaper gets on every time I need it to, but it is rare that we don’t both walk away with large, white smudges of Desitin on various parts of our clothing and a chip on each of our (sore) shoulders.  And all kidding aside, I really do feel like I’ve earned a medal (or at least a glass of wine) after changing some of the more difficult diapers.

And this post doesn’t even include the much harder subset of this event – changing a diaper in public.  Forget the Olympic medal; after that event any mother deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.

So much for the promised short blog post.  I suppose using the word “decathlon” at some point during your writing is a sure-fire way to increase any word count.  I am also at my parent’s house for the remainder of this week, so I will likely not have another post until this weekend or early next week.  I know you will all be dying of suspense!  Kidding, of course; but while I love being with my parents in Lynchburg I have missed my daily writings so I will be happy to be back to my routine with lots of stories to share.

Happy Tuesday!