Warning: This entry contains gross diaper talk.
***
In our household, one diaper incident (aka a “code brown”) is legendary. Just mention the phrase “Japanese restaurant” and Kelli and I shudder.
THEBOY was an infant, and we’d barely ventured out with him at that point. He couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old. But we felt brave one evening, and decided to hit a hibachi place. It was in the 40s, so we bundled him up in his little carrier and hit the road.
The meal was a success—to a point. I do believe that this was, in fact, the very night I learned the horror of reaching under one’s seated child to check a diaper and not even making it TO the edge of the diaper before seeing something most foul…
It was everywhere.
I don’t know how we determined that Kelli would be the one to change the diaper. I try to pitch in, even on code browns, which I believe I hate worse than anything not called Bon Jovi. But she got up with the kid and headed to the ladies’ room.
***
Now, on the one hand, I’ve essentially won the coin toss here. I get to stay and eat. Kelli’s doing the work, I’m in a moment of quiet, and I’ve got a plate full of food in front of me.
On the other hand, there’s some guilt associated with that.
And it intensifies as the diaper cleanup takes longer…
…and longer…
…and longer…
***
Kelli returned, eventually, with a child clad only in a diaper. There’d been no changing table, so this little disaster got to play out on a public restroom floor.
His clothes were ruined, our appetites were too, and suddenly two new, nervous parents had to take our nearly-nude infant out of the restaurant and into the chilly night air without any clothes to speak of on him.
***
Now, one could argue that, by letting my wife handle that, what with her still-healing caesarean section incision and all, I was invoking the wrath of the diaper gods.
And you’d be right.
The diapers gods are patient, see.
***
Last night we hit Luby’s for our usual Wednesday night dinner. Anyplace where kids eat free gets our attention, and heck, despite its rep, we can actually get a fairly healthy meal in the kids there.
We were nearly done, thankfully, when THEGIRL began making it clear that something was amiss in her nether regions.
I am an experienced father; I didn’t even check. Kelli fetched a diaper from the van, and for some crazy reason I volunteered to take care of this one.
We hit the men’s room to find NO CHANGING TABLE. Ah hell. It’s a damn family restaurant, and it’s kids-eat-free night, in fact—how can these turkeys not have a changing table?
So into the stall we went. Another changing job destined to occur on the floor.
And then I saw it.
Oh God.
Oh God oh God oh GOD.
Out the back of the diaper.
Out the FRONT of the diaper.
Smeared all inside her beautiful pink dress.
I was still in work clothes, in one of my nicer shirts, in fact.
Sigh.
***
It got everywhere. Her legs, her back, her stomach, her HAIR. Everywhere she hadn’t already deposited it, I managed to smear it while taking off her dress. Luckily I had a nice fistful of wet wipes, access to the stall TP and an industrial toilet.
I cleaned and cleaned. And I imagine Kelli’s discomfort grew as it took longer…
…and longer…
…and longer…
***
Finally she was reasonably clean. She was clad only in a diaper, but presentable enough to spirit her out of the restaurant without grossing out the patrons. I tried to jam the awful diaper way into the bottom of the trash can and proceeded to get IT all over me.
And that’s when I looked up to find she’d wandered over to a urinal and was splashing in it with both hands.
If I could have boiled us both I would have.
***
So Kelli got to be the one seeing her child emerge from a code brown basically nude in a public place.
Two good things:
- At least it wasn’t cold at all.
- I’m experienced now. Though it was ZERO fun, at least that panicky feeling from the early days of parenting wasn’t in evidence.
***
Second and final child, second and final child…
***
Happy Thursday, ya’ll… and remember: Take a change of clothes.
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