See, we’ve been “going to the potty” for a couple of months now, but it’s been slow. At first, he would only sit on his potty fully clothed. Then I coaxed him into sitting on it clad only in his diaper. It’s only recently that he’s begrudgingly allowed me to remove the diaper while he sits on the potty. Even then, I apparently have horrible timing. I’d have him sit on his potty while I read a book to him, but he would never go. There was one time that I pulled his pants up without a diaper so we could wash his hands before I put a fresh diaper on him, and he peed in his pants. Ten seconds after I got him off his potty. Figures. Anyway, we’ve not been having much luck with the process.

But yesterday when he woke up from his nap, his diaper was completely dry. I quickly ushered him into the bathroom to sit on his potty. After about 2-3 minutes… TA DA! HE PEED!

The look on his face was priceless.

I was so excited that as soon as he was done, I jumped up and down and did a little dance, shouting “Hooray! Hooray!” Paul came to the bathroom to see what all the commotion was about. When I told him about Nathan’s accomplishment, he praised Nathan for being a big boy. After I got Nathan’s diaper back on, Paul scooped him up and did a little dance, swinging him in his arms.

It was glorious.

Now to get Nathan to use his potty consistently and without me prompting. That’ll be nice. This is definitely a long process, much longer than I thought it would be. I hear some kids are really easy to potty train, but others? Not so much. I don’t make a huge deal out of it, though, because then Nathan would totally do the exact opposite. We’re just going at Nathan’s pace and I keep telling myself he won’t be in diapers forever. Just taking it one step at a time.

Did you know diapers can malfunction? Seriously, they really can.

I had to change Nathan’s diaper, and as I was getting his pants off, my fingers slid across what felt like a thousand boogers on his leg. Flummoxed, I pulled my up my hand and upon closer inspection, it looked sorta like there was caviar on it.

Only it wasn’t caviar.

Oh how I wish it had been caviar.

Wondering what this booger-like stuff was and where it was coming from, I examined Nathan’s diaper and noticed it had a 4″ rip in the side. When I peered inside this anomaly, I noticed that apparently, the stuff they use to absorb the pee looks like little tiny gel pellets once it comes in contact with liquid.

The liquid these pellets were swelled with was URINE.

So I had little squishy, yellow, booger-like pee-pellets all over my hand. And on his leg, too. I looked around and noticed that the pee pellets were all over the bedroom floor. I felt my heart drop into my stomach as my eyes roamed from the bedroom floor to the kitchen floor. There were pee pellets everywhere. Perhaps MILLIONS OF THEM. Glistening, shiny, and swollen with pale yellow urine. In the kitchen. In the living room. In the recliner that’s in the living room. And in fact, there was a little PILE of shimmering pee pellets ON THE RECLINER. Like Nathan had taken a dump and instead of leaving poop, he left pee pellets.

There were pee pellets EVERYWHERE.

And as I walked from his bedroom and into the kitchen, I stepped on them. Barefoot. I was walking on little balls of urine. I could feel them squishing coldly under my feet. It was a very unpleasant sensation and it felt very much how I imagine walking on dead baby jellyfish might feel like.

Even worse than the aquatic mental imagery was that we couldn’t just haul out the vacuum and vacuum it up because WHO WANTS A PEE IN THEIR VACUUM? Not me. So we had to go around and manually pick up Nathan’s little balls of pee with our bare hands.

So. We won’t be buying that particular brand diaper anymore, that’s for sure. Because picking up someone’s pee pellets just ONCE in a lifetime is one time too many.

He’s also cleaning up his toys quite well. Sometimes he balks when it’s time to clean up, but he still puts his toys away, even with little tears in his eyes. I tell him he should be so proud of himself because I understand how hard it is to put things away when you still want to play with them. (Believe me, I quite vividly remember the feeling!) And he loves giving things to Mommy. When he picks up something he’s not supposed to play with, I say “Give it to Mommy, please,” and he’ll toddler over as fast as his little legs will go and dramatically thrust said object at me.

I am enjoying these little moments while I can. I hear it won’t be long before he’s back-talking and refusing to do anything I ask!

This is what happens when I forget to put the diapers out of Nathan’s reach. He flings them all over the room, every single time. And he knows he’s not supposed to… hence the “I’m sorry, Mama” look on his face.

No, we didn’t immerse ourselves in glittering rays of sunshine. Or win any money in the lottery. No, it was nothing fancy or even fun. That’s right. It wasn’t even REMOTELY FUN. Well, what on earth could we possibly have done this morning?

I’ll tell you.

WE CLEANED UP POOP.

Lots and LOTS of Nathan poop.

We had put Nathan in his play-yard for a bit, and before we knew it, he had pooped in his diaper. But it wasn’t just a regular ole poopy diaper, no sir-ee. It was a FULL poopy diaper. And Nathan decided he didn’t like it one single bit. So guess what he did?

HE PULLED HIS DIAPER PARTLY DOWN.

And I’m sure you can guess what happened to all the Poop That Was Once Contained. It was unleashed all over the play-yard. All over Nathan. All over his clothes. All over almost every single one of his toys. And this isn’t the first time we’ve had a Play-yard Poop Catastrophe.

So we spend a large chunk of our morning giving Nathan a bath, cleaning all his toys in the play yard (I’m not kidding when I say that only two or three of his toys, out of about 15 that were in there, were void of poop. The remaining toys all had a little dollop of poop smeared here or there), cleaning the play-yard’s mesh sides, and cleaning the play-yard’s floor.

Not a fun day, so far. Not fun at all.

Nathan is MUCH happier. Thank God. Because I really, REALLY don’t like to see my child in pain.

I sent Pampers an email and also contacted them via phone, and to their credit, the lady I spoke to was quite nice and apologized for the problem. I asked if they were thinking about taking the DryMax off the shelves and reverting to the old Cruisers (which we loved using on Nathan) but she said at this time, no they are not. In fact, they aren’t making any more diapers without the DryMax. Which is a bummer because I really liked the Cruisers.

I wish I knew why Nathan had such reaction to (what I felt was) the diapers.

All I know is that I change Nathan’s diaper almost immediately after he wets it. Paul and I have always been seriously on top of the whole diaper changes, which is why Nathan never, ever had a diaper rash of more than two or three little bumps that we were able to eradicate in a matter of a day or so. (Unfortunately, we can’t prevent diaper rashes 100% since we don’t know the very second Nathan wets himself, and with him being mobile and all, the diaper rubs against the wetness and causes mild rashes.) I was flummoxed when I saw the skin on his bottom turn bright red and starting to blister and even peel, something I had never seen before on him. It most definitely was not your average diaper rash. It was more like a burn than anything. And what really befuddled me was how quickly it worsened because I was changing his diaper within 5-10 minutes of him wetting himself. So I was at a loss as to why he had a this strange skin aberration in the first place, and especially worried about the severity of it.

I’m just glad I caught it before it got worse. I’m also appreciative that Pampers listened to what I had to say and documented my complaint. Hopefully, they can get to the bottom of this and fix it. Because the new DryMax technology would be pretty cool if they could figure out how to stop these painful reactions.

Not a bad diaper at all. It contains the poop, with the exception of an explosion here and there, and that’s all that matters.

So recently, we got a box of the new Pampers Cruisers Dry Max, which boasts ultra protection against wetness. Well, I’m not saying this with 100% certainty, but coincidentally enough, when we started using the diapers with the “dry max technology,” Nathan started experiencing painful symptoms.

Remember how just the other day, I talked about Nathan suddenly developing an aversion to getting his diaper changed? Complete with thrashing and wailing and flipping and flopping?  Well, it turns out that it wasn’t an aversion to diaper changes themselves. I think it was because he was having a reaction to the diapers.

And I don’t mean like a diaper rash with the little bumps.

I mean that it was something akin to a chemical burn. After only a week or so of using the new diapers, Nathan’s poor little bottom started turning red, so I assumed he was just developing a diaper rash. Only the redness kept getting worse and worse, and applying diaper cream made Nathan shriek in pain. And just yesterday, his screaming when I changed his diaper escalated into panic mode, and I noticed that the skin on his bottom was on the verge of blistering. Some of it was even starting to peel. And then, I came across this article in the news.

So we quit using the new diapers and started using the Baby Dry again, and instead of using diaper cream, I’m using Baby Petroleum Jelly. He doesn’t mind so much when I use the petroleum jelly, but he screamed bloody murder when I tried using our normal diaper cream.

Again, let me reiterate that I’m not 100% sure that it was the new diapers that caused this reaction, but as a precaution, I thought it was worth mentioning just in case any other mamas notice their babies developing a rashlike burn after switching to a new diaper. IF there is a connection, then hopefully, other parents out there will catch it before the rash/burn develops into something more serious.

But this poop? This poop will haunt me. This poop will be in my nightmares for a long, long time to come.

See, I had put Nathan in his play yard because I needed to get some things done, and because Nathan gets into EVERYTHING, there is absolutely no way whatsoever I can leave him unsupervised with free rein of the room.

Apparently, he pooped soon after I put him in his play yard.

And this poop could not be contained by the diaper. He was wearing a two-piece pajama set, and the poop ERUPTED out of the diaper and up his back.

And for the first time, he didn’t cry to let me know he needed a new diaper.

Instead, HE ROLLED AROUND IN IT.

HE.

ROLLED.

AROUND.

IN.

IT.

My husband got to Nathan first and, bless his wonderful heart, proceeded to start the PEELING process. You know, the act of PEELING all that poop off of Nathan that had EMBEDDED ITSELF into his skin from him rolling around in it.

I walked in to help, and I was about KNOCKED OFF MY FEET by the smell.

Oh that smell. The smell of a thousand sewers mixed into one giant vat of Pure Stink. It was so noxious that I FELT MY EYEBROWS SINGE just a little. The smell was so foul that it seemed to SOLIDIFY in the air. As I walked to the changing table to help Paul, I envisioned these minuscule Poop Smell Particles floating around, invading my nostrils and covering my skin.

It smelled… thick.

I tried not to breathe.

It didn’t work. I had to breathe, so I put my shirt over my nose and mouth… but the smell still managed to penetrate my meager defenses.   

There was poop all over Nathan. ALL OVER HIM. It was on his arms, his legs, his ankles, his stomach, his back, and even UNDER HIS FINGERNAILS. But that was nothing compared to what lurked in his play yard.

The play yard was GROUND ZERO.

A POOP CATASTROPHE.

A calamity of unsurpassed proportions.

There was poop on every single one of his stuffed animals. It coated every single one of his toys. It was smeared all over the floor of the play yard and a dull brown sheen coated his book and all its pages. It was even ENMESHED in the mesh-sides of the play yard.

EN-FREAKING-MESHED in it.

It was like a bomb filled with poop had exploded in the play yard, and globs of poop were strewn about all over the place.

My so-very-awesome husband cleaned and sanitized the entire play yard, all Nathan’s toys, and the changing table, which took over half an hour. (Seriously, could I have possibly ever married any one else even half as wonderful as this man? I don’t think so!) This poopage was monumental.

MONUMENTAL, FOLKS.

If only there was a diaper out there that could contain Nathan’s poops… but I don’t think they make anything strong enough.

Nathan needs INDUSTRIAL-STRENGTH diapers.

And it can be really frustrating, I think mostly because Nathan has all these emotions and feelings but he has no way to communicate them. One minute, he’s my sweet little guy… all smiles and dripping drool. The very next minute, he’s like an animal… howling, screeching, pinching, smacking, and simply being defiant.

And it can be over something as simple as feeding him something like pears.

It doesn’t matter that yesterday, pears were his favorite food. Because today, they are NOT his favorite food. And I’m his mother, so apparently, I’m supposed to be his personal mind-reader, because he acts like he simply CANNOT believe that I would have the utter audacity to GIVE HIM PEARS.

And don’t even get me started on diaper changes.

He used to be fine with them. Then one day, out of the clear blue, he suddenly turned into this wriggling snake-like being who defied the changing-table restraint straps like a force to be reckoned with. What used to take only a couple of minutes has now turned into a battle of wills.

Nathan does not want his diaper changed.

I do.

So he twists and contorts and screams, and I coax and cajole and try to be as fast as I can.

And when Nathan and I are just hanging out and playing, sometimes he’ll push me away when I try to hug him. I try not to take it personally because, hell, he’s only a year old and has no concept of other people’s feelings. But when I bend over to hug him or pick him up and he pushes me away, I can’t help but feel like little pang of sadness.

My baby wants to be independent.

And when he’s in the floor playing with the toys that surround him, he’ll suddenly get upset for whatever reason. And he will slap his toys away, throw his arm dramatically over his eyes, and cry while intermittently peeking out from under his arm to make sure I’m watching this spectacle.

But he also has his really sweet moments… moments that make my heart swell up with so much love that it feels like I’m about to float away on a wispy cloud of pure bliss. Like when we wake up from a nap and he rubs my cheek every so gently.

With a hand coated in slobber.

But then he forgets he’s supposed to be gentle when touching my face and will smack me out of sheer… love. Can you believe it? He loves me so much that he gets super excited and starts smacking my face. I tried explaining that domestic violence isn’t how you show love, but of course he doesn’t quite get that concept.

Sometimes he even tries to yank off my lips. AS IF THEY ARE DETACHABLE.

It’s absolutely amazing watching him grow. A year ago, he was 100% dependant on me for every single thing. Now? Now, he’s becoming a little more independent each day. I’ve watched him grow from this helpless little being into someone with his own personality and his own wants and needs. I’ve watched him learn how to roll over, how to sit up, how to crawl… and I cry a little (JUST A LITTLE) each time he masters a new skill.

And nothing beats when he wraps his little arms around my neck and gives me a hug or nestles into my hair.

Ah, living life with a one-year old. It’s never, ever dull. Or boring.