Diaper Changes Are My Workout

Diaper changes are such a happy affair!

Remember that tiny newborn whose diaper you changed constantly but who couldn’t move? Couldn’t roll over? Couldn’t crawl away? That newborn has now been replaced with a toddler who has newfound strength. Who wants to roll over. Who wants to crawl away. Who wants to walk away. And who would rather do anything other than get a diaper or outfit change. Because that is suddenly the worst thing ever and akin to total baby torture.

It’s surprising that a little 20-something pound human can put up such a fight, but it takes all of my might to get a diaper on my youngest. It’s truly physically taxing. I set her down and immediately she ninja flips onto her stomach. Then she attempts to crawl away while I grab her little ankles and pull her back to me. I try to find a toy or another interesting object to occupy her but it just gets thrown to the side in a fit of fury. I try to sing and dance — do the whole dog and pony show — thinking that if I could just entertain her for 30 seconds this would be easier. Alas, I cannot. She usually escapes to parade herself around the room while I toddle around on my knees and try to wrangle her. It’s all fine when it’s a wet diaper. But it’s the dirty diaper that is the issue.

This 5-minute wrestling match makes me feel like I’m in some sort of baby version of Wrestlemania and the script is written so that I do not come out the winner. It’s all a matter of how badly I’m going to lose the match.

She fought me one day so that I had poop on both hands; she had poop on her foot. I got her cleaned up, but later I had a sense that I had poop on me that I couldn’t find. My sense was my sense of smell. I washed my hands again. Gave myself the once over. Couldn’t find the culprit.

It wasn’t until later when the kids were loaded into the car to pick up their sister that my son was like, “I found the poop! It’s on your leg!” Sure enough, there wasn’t just a smudge. It wasn’t a smidge. It was a terrible amount of poop near my calf — I don’t even know how it would have gotten there, but she must have kicked me with her poop-foot. I didn’t have time to change my pants — I would have had to unstrap both kids, go back inside, get changed, get the kids back in the car. My schedule doesn’t allow for 10-minute detours. So I had to do the walk of poop shame and hope that no one noticed. And that if they did, maybe they would think it was mud. Hopefully they would think it was mud, right?

These are the things they don’t tell you before you have kids: You might one day have a large amount of crap on your pants and you won’t be able to do a thing about it but hang your head and carry on about your day.

Ever ended up with the by-product of a diaper change on you? —Erin