Funny Kind of Bath

I can promise you that this will not be my most enduring post I've ever written, but it's definately a story I want Elaina to read when she's a teenager.

Each month, I have only one commitment to the Canal Society for an evening meeting. Tonight was that night. So, 15 minutes before I had to leave the house, I picked Elaina up from her walker and placing her on my hip, I felt that her foot was wet. I assumed that she must have just spilled her juice somehow and I was going to have a sticky child to deal with when I got home. Upon further investigation, it wasn't exactly juice. I'm gonna just have to call it as I see it ... it was poo. We were both covered in slime. The entire back of her onesie, her capri pants, her sock and her shoe - coated. (Did I mention that it was a brand new outfit ? ) As I was still wearing my work clothes, she got the side of my shirt with a dribble on my pant leg. I was in such disbelief that I actually started to laugh ! What an unbelievable mess ! At this point, I didn't even know where to start. I carried her upstairs horizontally, face down, with her explosion toward the ceiling. I popped her into the bathtub - clothes, shoes, diaper and all. She looked every bit confused as to why, for this bath, she would get to wear her clothes. As I had grabbed the phone on our way up, I quickly dialed my friend to let her know that it would a miracle if I actually made it to the meeting. Next, I started to peel off her layers and then mine and began to search for a bio-hazard bag. Now what ? Elaina pulls her toy basket into the murky water and before I can catch them - every one of them is now contaminated. After changing the bath water 3 times, we finally had a clean and fresh child. Eric finished putting her jammies on her and I went back for clean-up duty : Round 2. I scrubbed out the mess from our clothes and proceeded to bleach out her bath toys and then the tub. Afterall, the grandparents would be using her bathtub this weekend and now it's especially clean for company !

I managed to get to my meeting 30 minutes later with a just a hint of Clorox still lingering on my hands. So, even as the evening started out STINKY, I enjoyed the challenge of a messy diaper just like every other parent, because, at least, I have a sweet child to fill it !!