Dominic walks to his wagon in the garage where his food bag is (my term for the cooler bag we usually carry his bottles and snacks in). I figure, since he is now not napping until 1pm these days, that he must want something to eat. Carrots? no. Graham cracker? no. Banana? no. *whimper* He rubs his eyes before his little arms reach longingly for the only thing left in the bag: the bottle, and I surmise that all this hard work weeding may have brought on the need for an early nap!
I give him the bottle and his eyes immediately start that rolling-back-into-his-head thing that proves my hypothesis. I scoop him up and cradle his now 32-lb mass like a little baby and carry him into the house and up the stairs to his room, leaving my elderly neighbor raking alone. Blinds closed, fish aquarium light out, mobile-less mobile music playing, D melts into the crib mattress with bottle fully engaged. Once I load the teether and Thomas the Tank Engine into the pockets of the little toy organizer suspended on the crib railing along the wall so he'll have something to do between when he wakes up and when I bound up the stairs to him, I hurry back down to my indentured servant in the garden. The time is about 12:20.
I show her the monitor and we huddle around it for a couple of minutes. D is singing his little tongue-rolling-I'm-happy-to-be-relaxing song each time he comes up for air from the bottle (19 months and still not talking, by the way) and slowly kicking his feet. We resume gardening and continue to hear the singing until nearly 1pm. At 1... silence. My mind celebrates his slumber. But alas, about 1:15, new sounds come from the monitor: its the uuuuunnnnhhh... uuuuunnnhhh whine that usually means "ok I'm done sleeping; come get me!" Ugh. I pray, "Please God, let today not be one of the very few days so far in his life that he skips his nap." I try to ignore the sound, hoping he will realize it's nap time and lay back down. No luck. At 1:30, I look at the monitor and he is fully standing up, griping away.
I stall another 15 minutes. It wouldn't be the first time that he stood up after finishing a bottle and 5 minutes later was out like a light. Not today, though. At 1:45, the griping takes an unhappy turn and I decide I'd better go get him.
Ok; here's the punch line...
When I opened the door to his room, the smell of baby poo almost knocks me over! When my eyes stop stinging and start to focus, I begin to see that my little angel has reached into his poopy diaper and what he had pulled out was now all over the crib railing, crib sheet, his clothes (diaper is still on, by the way), his hair, the wall, and the window blinds barely in reach of his crib. Ay carumba!?!
Amazing how 2 years ago I would have hesitated to put my hands into that situation without a hazmat suit but now I rush to him and sweep my suffering prince into my arms. (Yes, now I am poopy too.) I drop him onto the changing table, strip him nude, and reach for a wet wipe to attack the bulk of the ... uh ... situation. When I turn to use it, I see his beautiful little peach bottom, pristine and literally "soft as a baby's bottom" just a couple of hours ago, is now raw like hamburger and covered with blisters. Good grief, what did I feed him that did THIS? (He did have his first bite of grapefruit that morning, just a bite, but I assure you we won't be eating that again anytime soon!)
So I took the whole mess into the master bathroom and turned on the tub. Now he's pretty much crying hysterically thanks to my feeble attempt at wet-wiping the solid matter without further injuring his acid-burnt flesh. Once about an inch of water had accumulated, I tried to get him to sit in it but he screamed out in pain so we switched to an on-the-knees position where he seemed to get immediate relief. Whew! I used the little hand shower to gently sprinkle some cool water on his blistered buns with the drain open, and closed the drain again once he seemed clean enough to soak. Before my very eyes, the little white blisters covering his derriere began to vanish. He quickly returned to the happy-go-lucky angel boy I see 99.9% of the time.
As I leave him happily sticking the little rainbow of foam sea creatures to the side of the tub and turn to my mirror to begin my own strip-and-clean act, I am touched by his sweetness. It must have been during the 1pm silence that this menace had presented itself, yet he tried to take care of it himself before calling out to me gently, as if to say, "Uh, excuse me. Can someone please come and help me with a little problem?" It was nearly an hour of him stewing with a pants full of hot coals before he started to elevate his requests: "Helloooo! Help! Someone save my burning bottom!"
Even covered in poop, I feel really lucky.
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