Last night I had the privilege of being entrusted as the caretaker of baby Sophia for the second time ever. Although I'm an only child, I've alway been comfortable with infants and children. Throughout my teens years I babysat for various neighbours; and in the few past years, I've enjoyed babysitting once in a while for my couple friends. Other than being the nice person that I am, my willingness to babysit can also be attributed to mildly-non-altrustic reasons. Truth be told, I find it self-edifying that I can feed, change and if necessary, sooth a cranky baby without being their mom. I see it as a sort of character-building exercise.
This time, the gig started around 6 pm. Sophia and I played for a hour and visited with my friend Maxine who had dropped by with fresh baked cookies! By 7 pm, I began carrying out her bedtime regimen, as meticulously laid out in a note by Sophia's mum. Nothing too noteworthy during this time except for when Sophia had squirmed, kicked and flippantly attempted to wrestle her way out of a diaper change. Not yet a year old, and one can surely tell that this girl has got a mind of her own. It didn't matter to her that all her struggling would only amount to futility, she wasn't going to make it easy for me.
After the diaper change, I put her into the crib, left the room and went downstairs.
Not less than five minutes later, I hear her crying. Not the typical "I don't wanna go to bed" cry, but the high pitched howling of a very angry baby. Oh oh... maybe she needs another diaper change. I skipped back up the stairs and as soon as I picked her up, I knew (from the smell) that this diaper would not be clean like the previous one. I thought I was mentally prepared to face whatever mess that awaited me, but found myself caught off-guard by the shear volume and pungency of it. What a difference solid food can make to the poop! I was also unprepared to handle the combination of a massively soiled diaper and a strongwilled baby, who was now trying to twiggle herself out of my hand with the full vigor akin to that of a daredevil trying to get out of a stray jacket.
Suddenly, I was horrified with the realization that I could be seconds away from a feces catastrophe. Visions of poop smears on the wall, the change table and.... on Me were racing through my mind. Containment! Containment! I quickly used the clean part of the diaper to wipe off whatever I could on her tush, but she still wasn't clean. Then, a box of baby wipe on the shelf next to me caught my eye. I flipped open the lid, and found it empty. Drat! WHAT can I use to wipe her clean? With desperation, I looked around and grabbed the first piece of cloth that I saw; and as I wiped up Sophia, I realized that I had just sacrificed one of those nice hooded baby bath towels. Oops... I quickly rationalized that not using it would only have led to a much worse fate for the contents of this nursery. And through all of this, Sophia continued to fully "assert" herself - all 20 Ib or so of it - twisting and flailing about, trying to kick her ankles out of my grip and escape the maddness atop the change table.
Fear not, for I am happy to report that I indeed won the Battle of the Pink Change Table. Nevertheless, I was not freed from having to console the losing party, who took another solid 20 minutes to cry herself asleep in my arms.
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