Months ago, we moved the changing pad to the floor, since his lunging in every direction was heart-stopping. He's much safer on the floor, but it gives him too much room to work with as I try to man-handle him into a diaper.
Poopy ones are my favorite.
He gets suspicious as I carry him up the stairs. When I place him on his back, he starts to wail at the injustice, perhaps lamenting that excrement removal keeps him from his favorite activities of immersing his hands in the toilet, reorganizing the pantry, crab-crawling his way up the stairs, or changing my Facebook Profile picture while messing with my phone.
I start in Veteran Mama pose as I breathe deeply and try to press his little body down with one hand, lifting his chubby feet with the other. A quick release of his torso to whisk the poop-filled diaper away gives him the opportunity to perform a quick flip and land in what I like to refer to as The Wheelbarrow.
This is when his head and chest face downward, he's twisted in the middle, and I have his legs and bottom raised high in the air. He paddles his arms in a swimming motion off of the end of the changing pad and onto the floor. Before I lose my grip on his legs and my mind, I attempt to dislodge any large clumps of poop.
Then the quick little rascal scoots away, his prodigious rear so clenched and dimpled, it's nearly impossible to make progress on the more recessed areas of his nether-regions. "Crack is whack," I mutter, as I nab him by the trailing snaps of his onesie and try to gently poke a wipe where it really needs to be. His body may be stationary for the moment, but his legs stay moving in a cartoon-style running motion.
When I lose my grip on the onesie, clearly taking a deduction on my final score, he darts out his door into our tiny hallway, grabs the baby gate, which I have (thankfully) locked, pulls himself up, and clings to the bars like a unduly happy circus animal.
My 47 year old shoulders ache from effort, but I know we're near the finish line. I crawl up behind him on the hardwood floor, give him a loud smoochy smooch on the soft folds of his neck and finish my floor routine with Standing Diaper, something moms have perfected over many decades. It's slightly inferior to Regular Diaper, as one chubby cheeks seems to be hanging out more than the other, but it'll do.
He's no longer stinky, or confined, or angry. I conclude a diaper and an unsnapped onesie is perfectly appropriate indoor winter wear, because I'm not about to wrassle him back into pants. I scoop him up, and we head back downstairs to take a bow, hoping that the next poop is hours away.
