story as told by daddy
Today was the fourth day of October and the fourth day of Naiya Sophia’s life. We have been home from the hospital for two days with Dionne’s parents playing a supportive role. Today we took a trip to Target to pick up a couple of nursing bras and some warm clothing for Anke. While they were in the dressing rooms I had been wandering around with my daughter. Upon hearing a small squishy explosion in her diaper I immediately began to search for her mother. Not to avoid the responsibility of the change, mind you, but to let her know I was headed into the bathroom for our first public restroom changing. I found her after about two or three minutes of searching and let her know what I was doing. Then the adventure began.
As I said, this was the first time I had changed her in a public restroom. It was also the first time I had opened up a public changing station.
As you walk into the restroom, the first thing you see is the changing station. You walk down a short hallway (four or five paces) and turn left to go to the stalls, toilets and sinks, but I stopped and opened the changing station. There were no changing table covers. The dispenser was empty, but I did not take this as a bad omen. I just pulled the blanket out of the car seat I had been carrying her in and laid it down on the table. I put a new diaper under the old one and opened it up.
I should say at this point that Naiya’s poo isn’t that bad at all. It’s yellow, with some green chunks that look kind of like spinach. It doesn’t smell, and changing her diapers is not difficult or disgusting. I say this with much thanks to the lords of karma that set me up in a Target bathroom today. Upon opening her diaper I found a pretty big mess, nothing I couldn’t handle, but a mess. I wiped her bum, and pulled the bad diaper out, everything is looking great, at which point she decided she wasn’t done. Now I know that kids have a tendency to continue going to the bathroom after their diaper is removed. I mean, who would want to sit in poo, but Naiya has some special powers I was unaware of. I lifted her legs to finish wiping her bum and she let loose. I don’t mean she pooed or peed a little. It was an arcing shot of poo that literally traveled five feet through the air. Her yellow and green poo splattered all over the floor for a stretch of about four to five feet, right in the entry way. This is when three other people happened to be coming into the bathroom. So I am holding Naiya on the changing table (it hadn’t occurred to me that those straps might be a good idea), trying to clean her all over again, getting out a third diaper, attempting to wipe poo off the floor, and directing traffic around the poo. One of the poor fools who happened in upon me was an employee too. At this point I was really wishing I had four hands. But I got everything cleaned up, and Naiya back in her car seat (which also had to be cleaned... I am telling you there was poo everywhere). I stuffed her blanket into our diaper bag because there was no way I was putting that thing back on her, and I went on to cleaning the floors. Now as you probably know, the brown paper towels they give you in a public restroom are really good at pushing liquid around, but they aren’t all that absorbent. So I was pushing her puddles around for a while until I couldn’t really see all the yellow color on the floor and picked up all the chunks. Then I grabbed my daughter and left as quickly as possible. I don’t even know if the kid who worked there told anybody about the mess, but I left in a hurry and never found out.
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