The Five Alarm Diaper of Easter 2007

I sure don’t miss diapers.  But the sad thing about no more diapers is no more diaper stories.  Like returning warriors with PTSD, parents love to swap and tell diaper stories, proudly displaying their scars like badges of honor.  Luckily I still have some old stories to tell.  Like, for instance, the five alarm diaper of Easter 2007.

You never forget your first one.  Ruby had pretty much just been born, and we had been invited over to a friend’s house for Easter dinner.  Well, that’s not exactly accurate.  We had been invited over to the house of our friend’s parents, where we would be having dinner with them all for the first time and meeting her sister and other assorted family members.  So we wanted to make a good impression with our new, sweet-smelling, and well behaved baby.

It started off so well.  Ruby did not need to eat actual food, so she was taken care of.  She sat napping in her portable carseat device while her mother and I enjoyed delicious food and pleasant conversation.  Then a suspicious smell was reported in the area.  Having no sense of smell myself, I was made aware of the issue by my wife, and quickly excused myself to the living room for a quick diaper change.  I was in no way prepared for what was in store for me.

Now, I have shared horrible poop stories with you in the past, and they are never fun.  But it always helps to have gone through it before.  To have some clue as to what to do.  So I guess you might say that this Easter dinner disaster was what prepared me for the next several years of my life.  Because when I went to check the diaper I discovered a significant hull breach.

Ruby was in her cute little Easter outfit, and this outfit would never be used again.  Her diaper had been filled to overflowing with some sort of liquid sewage that sloshed all over everything the instant anyone (me) touched her.  It was like someone had started a routine hydrant flushing operation, but connected the hose to the wrong pipe.  It was up her back.  It was up her neck.  It was in the seat.  It was everywhere.  I had no skills for something like this.

“SIMONE!” I called out to my wife in desperation.  “HELP!”  I rang all five alarms, and Simone rushed to assist, but this was more than a two-man job.  By the end of this epic diaper change there were several people, including my friend’s sister, involved in the operation.  We managed to get it all contained, the area cleared, and the floor cleaned.  Thank goodness we were not attempting this over the carpet.

We had plenty of other five-alarmers over the next several years, but none of them at a relative stranger’s house at Easter dinner, and none of them involving parents so completely inexperienced and flabbergasted at the amount of poop that one tiny baby can produce.  These days there are no more diaper stories being produced at my house, but this is fine with me.  We’ll always have Easter.