the sad, soggy faces of lakeland's friends after being fed an unexpected lunch...
Two months ago (it's taken that long for me to mostly recover from the following experience), I invoked, in that unmistakable "mom tone", my daughter's full name. I could hear my mother's voice feathered in my own as I blurted out "Lakeland J Weinburger!".
I could hardly believe what I saw. I was astounded. Shocked. Appalled. All that. What had happened was so awful that, as soon as Seth got home that afternoon, I wordlessly took my laptop to my room, closed the door, loaded up old episodes of Roseanne (shut up, I love that show - don't judge), and ate ice cream. Straight from the carton.
I thought it was just my good luck that Lakeland was taking a 3 hour long nap - a rookie mistake. There wasn't a peep from her room for so long that I had started to worry. I finally, slowly turned the door knob and peeked my head in, expecting to find my little angel asleep. And there she was. Covered from head to toe in "the majority of my diet for the last 7 days has been blueberries" poop.
Covered. There was black poop on and in: her mouth, hair, nose and ears. It was between her fingers and her toes...all twenty digits caked. Stuck in nail beds as if she'd been giving herself a manure manicure and a poop pedicure. She'd fed feces to Curious George, Winnie the Pooh, and Mr. Goatface, spread shit on Dr. Suess's beloved Whaley. She'd bookmarked each of her favorite reads. She'd flung dung on her gorgeous, treasured quilt. She'd defiled sheets and super fluffy shaggy WHITE lamb shaped pillow. Smudged each rung of the crib and surrounding walls.
I just stood there. Mouth agape. Lakeland was completely naked, though highly decorated in what looked like Native American war paint, having figured out that she could have a great time finger painting with blueberry poop if she could just get her cloth diaper off, and if she stayed very, very quiet.
I was frozen. I couldn't even move past the doorway. I had no clue what to do. After several mute minutes, I took action. In what my aunt deemed the "Mommy Hazmat Suit", I stripped down naked, knowing that as soon as I got within 3 feet of Lakeland, I'd be covered in poop myself. I lunged toward my little darling and swung her out of her crib, holding her with my arms straight out in order to leave the widest possible berth between her crap-caked body and me.
A thorough scrub of two girls, and everything in between the nursery and the shower, along with the passing of two months, and I am able to impart the following wisdom/lessons:
1. It only takes one phone call to cancel cloth diaper service.
2. It only takes one blueberry poop story to get out of a "two weeks notice" contract from said diaper service company.
3. One child, with developing digestive system, should not be fed raw blueberries for 20ish consecutive meals.
4. Quiet child does not equal sleeping child.
5. Oxyclean is the shit.
