Diaper by Flashlight

You'd think with two kids, one who is now potty trained and one who is a year old, that I would have seen almost everything with diapers. Not true, my friends, not true.

I've just returned from a new one: I changed a poopy diaper by light of a flashlight.

Not because we had a power outage, not because we're conserving electricity, but because of the following story.

Today was a wonderful and weird day. Smiley had her 1-year shots yesterday so was a little cranky sleeping last night and today was mostly happy with a few bouts of more-than-usual tired. Turbo was fine until about 4:45 PM.

We had spent a lovely afternoon in Bellingham visiting some great friends (love you guys!), enjoying their park-like yard, and petting bunnies and kitties. Turbo seemed tired when we got into the car and within 20 minutes or so was asleep. Not typical, but he'd had only a short nap earlier, so perhaps he was making up for that.

Smiley is the one who got more and more cranky (although she napped too), and so around 4:45 PM we pulled into a Mexican restaurant and got some dinner.

I don't know if you've had the same experiences with bringing in 2 small children into a restaurant, but we usually get seated in the very back of the place, next to no one. This time it worked out for us.

In the end, the dinner went like this: Smiley was really only happy if she could practice walking and so we did laps with her around the place. She was happy, but mom and dad didn't enjoy much leisure in their meal (very typical, right parents?). Turbo seemed fine at first, but then kept asking to go potty and then couldn't really deliver and so spent the meal laying in my lap while I ate one-handed. I asked him if his tummy hurt and he said 'yes' and so I immediately shoveled some food in, packed it up and tried to get out of there before we had a vomiting episode. That is one restaurant experience I do not want to have!

All was well, but Turbo was getting whinier and looking sicker as we got closer to home.

Long story, cut short... neither kid is feeling all that well today. By the time Turbo was ready for bed he was running a good fever and really needy for mommy and so I was the one to put him into bed. Thank goodness, because while I was feigning sleep as Turbo drifted off with one hand cupping my face (sigh, so sweet), I overheard the undeniable grunts of a Smiley pooping in her diaper.

Here's the shocker, she didn't wake up. She is known, at home and at 3 different daycares, for waking up immediately if she has a BM while sleeping. But no waking.

So I recruited Dad to help me and together we quietly took care of business in the hallway outside the bedroom, Dad with the flashlight helping me so that the overhead light won't wake her fully.

But she did open her eyes, and she saw her darling Daddy looking down at her and she cooed.

She loves her Daddy.


ps - to our friends in B'ham, the kids were feeling great at your house, so thanks for a wonderful afternoon! Glad they waited until after we left to take a turn.

pps - please wish us all a good night's sleep tonight.