Babies scare me. I don’t hold other people’s offspring.
Up until a year ago I’d never changed a diaper, been puked on, or walked into see a 12-month old pulling the poo out of their diaper. Trust any of those are scare worthy.
What changed? My wife and I had twins a little over 1 year ago. Now for some reason my kids help me experience the above gag nastiness and scare-filled episodes when my wife is nowhere to be found. Case in point…
The Diaper Debacle
My twins were born one month early. My daughter was 3.11 lbs and my son was 7.2 lbs. They spent their first night in something that looked like an incubator. On their second day of life I was giving friends a tour of my kids and the nurse asked me to stick around. She asks me if I’d like to take my kid’s temperature. I interrogated her to make sure that I didn’t have to stick a thermometer in their hind parts. She says that I can take their temp under their armpit. Seems harmless, so I say yes.
That lady punk’d me.
Next thing I know she’s handing me a diaper and telling me that before I can take their temps I have to change their diaper. I tell her that I’ve never done it and she looks at me as if to say, “dude you just had twins so get ready be thrown into the deep end and start swimming.”
That’s scary I don’t care who you are.
I changed my first and second diaper with my kids in incubators. It wasn’t easy. My wife was up stairs in her hospital bed. When I saw her after this incident she knew that I had just become a man. I grew up fast that day.
Dynamic Power Puke
A few weeks ago I was getting my kids ready for bed. I had survived a fun filled day of playing, shopping, and free samples at Costco. My daughter was changed and it was my son’s turn. For some reason he started coughing. He started coughing violently while on the changing table. I bent over to pick him up right as he power pukes dinner all over the changing table.
It smelt gag nasty.
I picked him up only to redirect his next puke into his lap. I’m standing there with a mountain of puke all over my son and I don’t have a fat clue what to do. I lay him down on the only corner of the changing table that isn’t smothered in puke only to watch him snuggle his face into his own puke.
I pick him up, get puke all over me, pick my daughter up by her pj’s like you’d pick up a cat, put her in her crib, ran to the bathtub and washed my son to the best of my ability. When my wife came home she didn’t have to ask how my night was. She could tell by the look on my face that I had lived out a sitcom or maybe a scare-filled movie.
Poo as Play-Doh
The other day I went to wake my kids up from their nap. We were headed out to a wedding and we had to get them up. I was wearing a nice dress shirt and a tie. I walked in to see my daughter reach out to me. It was really sweet…until I saw that her hand left a brown print on my arm. What in the wide world of sports could this be?
I looked down to see that she had not only poo’d herself, but she decided to pull the poo out and play with it. Can you say scary? I tried to clean it up but it was like cleaning up a duck in an oil spill. I was getting it all over me. It was brutal. I finally yelled for me wife to come tag in. When she came in the room she could tell that I once again had had a daddy adventure.
Love Beyond the Scare
Now what do all these stories have in common? They are all moments that I wouldn’t trade for the world. You see for six years we weren’t able to have kids. We prayed and waited.
Now that we have kids I never want to complain about anything that they bring to the table. I’ll take moments of poop and puke every day if it means that I have my kids. I love my life. I love my wife. I love my kids.
Question: What kid adventures have you had?
EdiTOR’s Note: Our family recently delivered our third child. As such, some blogging buddies of mine have graciously offered to write a series of guest posts to allow my family to spend a little time together – away from this blog. I’m deeply grateful for such friends, and I hope you enjoy their writing!
Today’s guest post comes from Rob Shepard who writes regularly at robshep.com – random thoughts from a transparent pastor. The stated goal for his blog is to make readers think and laugh – or to thaugh if you will. He has several recurring features on his site including: Mind Dumps, movie reviews and thoughts about God. Be sure to check it out!
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