A Rude Awakening

Now, while this has been a very traumatic and often difficult journey in the past couple of weeks, there have definitely been some great moments of laughter and so I thought I would share this little story with you that happened this past Tuesday morning when we were staying at Bob and Sally's apartment in Vancouver. So on this particular morning, Karyn got up with Isaiah to feed him breakfast and watch him (watching is all she really can do, because the c-section surgery has left her only able to do limited and slower movements and she can't pick anything up). Now, just "watching" Isaiah is normally all that one needs to do with him in the morning...or so we thought.

As Isaiah's morning pattern has shown has shown us for the past year, he gets up, eats breakfast in the highchair with his PJ's on, gets down, we take his PJ's off, and we change his wet diaper (it's just wet, no yucky stuff). On this particular morning, all was going according to his usual pattern. He got up, ate breakfast, got down from the high chair, Karyn sat on the carpet, and Isaiah walked over to have his PJ's removed and his diaper changed. Karyn manages to get his PJ's off without incident and is about to remove his diaper when Isaiah decides that he would like to take it off himself. Usually we get him to lie down and then we remove it. But he's a big boy (17 months), so Karyn decides to let him try. So Isaiah continues with his attempt to take off his diaper by pulling on the sticky tabs on either side of the front of his diaper. And...Success! The diaper drops to the ground and to Karyn's horror, it's filled with an unexpected load of yucky stuff! To which Isaiah exclaims "Poo!" And then proceeds to plant his left foot squarely in the middle of it! And then run around the living room in circles yelling at the top of his lungs, "Poo! Poo! Poo! Poo! Poo!"

Now this all happens in about 3 seconds flat, so poor immobile Karyn is left just sitting there watching in shocked disbelief as our son runs buck naked in circles, leaving clumps of poo and pooey foot prints on the carpet. Karyn finally comes to her senses and manages to get Isaiah's orbit to come close enough to her so that she can grab him and wipe off his foot. Now that she has him, she needs me to contain him while she cleans up the mess. So she starts yelling my name to get me out of bed to come get Isaiah. The unfortunate thing is that I'm wearing earplugs because part of Isaiah's morning pattern is that he usually likes to yell at the top of his lungs quite randomly and for no apparent reason...so whatever parent gets to sleep in, often sticks earplugs in to get some uninterrupted sleep.

Now, remember the title of this blog entry? "A Rude Awakening". Well, I'm sound asleep when I feel someone shaking me. I wake up and it's Karyn. I'm staring up at her face and her mouth is moving, but no sound is coming out. She sees my puzzled look and proceeds to yank my earplugs out of my ears. "Isaiah stepped in poo and tracked it all over the carpet and I need you to contain him while I clean it up!" Still a little asleep, I find this story a bit puzzling and hard to follow, but the urgency in Karyn's eyes tells me she isn't joking. And then I notice Isaiah standing behind her, completely naked. And then he turns around to leave the bedroom, and I see a hunk of poo protruding from his bum. "Well, now I definitely know she isn't joking," I think to myself . So I get out of bed and go into the living room to survey the carnage. And sure enough there are five significant sized, half lump, half smeared piles of poo on the floor. I guess Karyn had grabbed the "nuggets" before Isaiah had managed to press those into the carpet too.

I grabbed Isaiah, cleaned off his "little friend" he was carrying around with him, and kept him away from the deposits he had left on the floor before he decided to step in them again. I simultaneously got a bucket of hot soapy water and a cloth, gave them to Karyn, and she scrubbed the three contaminated areas of the carpet. It was my job to play goalie with Isaiah while she scrubbed. I was the goalie, he was the puck, and his "deposits" were the goal. Needless to say, I'm a pretty good goalie and I managed a shut out. By the time Karyn was done, the carpet looked as if nothing had happened (though I don't think I would say, "The floor's so clean you could eat off it!") Well, by all accounts you'd never know what had happened that morning if you looked at or smelled the carpet, and I guess that's what counts. At least, I hope that's what counts. Sorry Bob and Sally if that's not what counts! Thanks again for giving us your place for a couple of weeks! Don't worry, we won't let Isaiah change any of his own diapers again! I think it's safe to say we've learned our lesson.

So, I hope our little story brought a smile to your face, as it sure did for us. Because, after a morning like that, and being woken up like that, what else can you really do?!