Big Trouble in Little Diaper (or, Adventures in Babyshitting)

They say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. After today, I could probably lift the front-end of a semi.

Early this afternoon, one of our cats threw up. Yes, cats throw up. But this was a lot of vomit. It was orange and chunky and everywhere. Little did I know that this would not be the most disgusting thing to happen before the hour was up.

Minutes after I finished tossing several wadded up paper towels full of cat-hurl into the trash, my son had a blowout. This was not your run-of-the-mill bowel movement. It wasn't just an especially hefty diaper-filling. It was a 15-megaton, supersonic paroxysm of feces.

Here is a simulation:

It was Erin's turn to change the diaper, but it became immediately apparent that this was to be a two-person operation. Without much warning, we were suddenly in what felt like the climactic third act of an episode of ER. Oliver was placed on the changing table, which, in retrospect, will now probably need to be replaced. As we unsnapped the snaps of his decimated onesie, the inner contents came spilling out like the intestines of a wounded soldier who has just removed his flak jacket. The breadth of spray would have been enough to seriously impress a spatter analyst. There was excrement all the way down each leg. Halfway up his back. Everywhere else you could imagine. As I said to my wife in the heat of battle, "Did you ever think you'd have occasion to be cleaning shit off a penis?"

We worked in tandem like a poorly oiled machine, shouting out panicked instructions like two individuals who had won, via lottery, the chance to be surgeons for a day.

"There—on his inner thigh...get it!"

"Hand me another wipe! Shit, I dropped it...hand me another one!"

"No, honey, no...hold his right foot. His right foot. Jesus Christ, the foot on the right side of his body!"

It was chaos. The more we cleaned, the more there seemed to be. It was like a telltale turd, taunting us with its invincibility, admonishing us for our pathetic lack of experience and competency. At one point, when we realized that our son had bucked the most basic laws of physics by firing a torrent of waste up the length of his spine, it become obvious that we would not be able to remove his clothing by traditional means, lest we smear his leavings from chin to soft spot. So, grabbing a pair of scissors and proceeding with the utmost care (but also haste), I cut the thing off of him, at last freeing him from his crap-drenched garment.

At this point, an eight-inch tall pile of soiled wet wipes had accumulated. There were no pauses in-between; our hands moved in a continuous loop, from baby to wipe dispenser and back again. The whole ordeal probably lasted ten minutes, but it felt like twenty lifetimes.

Finally, one onesie, two changing mats, and three trash bags later, we had a pristine, glistening infant once again. He cooed and squeaked as if nothing had just happened—as if his actions hadn't just resulted in a fecal blast radius of at least thirty feet. With a new, completely useless diaper on his body, and a dash of Desitin on his ass, he was as good as new.

Erin and I, on the other hand, will never be the same.