A crappy afternoon

Yesterday, my four month old son was covered in pooh. Literally, from head to toe. He had a massive explosion that even his kevlar diapers couldn't stop. When I carried him upstairs to get changed I had no idea what I was dealing with. I noticed some wetness on the front of his blue shirt, but I thought that it was simply a collection of drool.

I laid him on the change table and my other son, Jack, looked at me and said, "Daddy, what's that on your shirt." A patch of light brown goo had mysteriously appeared on my white shirt. What I initially thought was a pool of drool on my son's shirt was indeed poo. It's amazing that the force of this explosive natural phenomenon could send crap up his front and backside at the same time.

I didn't know where to start. I unsnapped the bottom of his "onesie" (if you aren't sure what a onesie is, then call one of your friends who has children), and this runny, pumpkin-hued liquid gushed out from around his diaper. I had never seen anything like it.

Jack ran into the bathroom where my wife, Carrie, was relaxing in the tub, and announced, "Max pooed...mommy Max pooed."

He then ran back into his brother's room, where he watched me assess the situation. First, I got some safety tape and cordoned off a six foot perimeter around the offending child, who laid there as if nothing was out of the ordinary. I stood for a while trying to figure out how I was going to take off the poo-soaked shirt without getting crap all over his head.

With little choice, I had to pull the shirt over his head. Jack then ran and told his mother that Max had poo on his head. My wife almost drowned laughing about the crappy predicament that I found myself in.

I looked to my youngest son, who now had poo over his entire body, and apologized. I don't know what I was apologizing for, but it was the only thing I could say to him at that moment. He just looked at me with those big blue eyes and smiled. I guess there's a reason we don't remember things in our first few years of life.

Jack kept up the play by play, and relayed the progress to his mother. She must have thought that I was able to handle everything, because she didn't make any effort to extricate herself from the bath.

I got out the jumbo box of wipes and started to clean his body. The wipes did little but spread the gooey liquid around. I started gagging, so I took him outside and hosed him off. That didn't work, so I strapped him to his change table, at which time Jack yelled, "mommy, now there's poo on the straps." I filled his little bath tub and threw him in, but as if on cue he started peeing. Oh well, what's a little pee in the water when your body is covered in crap.

By now, Carrie had climbed out of her bath and was now smiling as I was trying to take control of this shitty situation. The bath did wonders and Max was sparkling clean. A few hours later while feeding Max, my wife turned to me and matter-of-factly said, "I think you missed some, there's still some poo on his ear."