... Okay, that's done. Much better. It was just black Times New Roman text on a gray background. Now you know why they asked me to pretty it up.
So!
Yesterday. It all started with Raiden waking up - well, half waking up - at about 6:00 to start squirming and fussing and tossing and turning and making noises like his stomach hurt, flopping around from the head of the bed where he would occasionally bypass the pillow barrier to bonk his head on the headboard, down to the foot of the bed where there was no pillow barrier so Mommy would grab him and move him back to the head of the bed, despite his protests, to keep him from falling off. Meanwhile, I was just hoping he would calm down enough to let me sleep another 45 minutes. After a half hour of this routine, he finally flopped to just the right location for my nose to be close enough to his butt to detect a hint of stink. Okay, okay, I figured, I didn't realize he was dirty and he's squirming away from poop. Even though it doesn't bother him during the day. Whatever, maybe it's squishy and uncomfortable. Fine. Diaper change. He's already pissed off anyway, I thought to myself as I grabbed one squirmy fussy baby-slash-toddler and tossed him onto the changing table. Maybe "laid" is a better word than "tossed," but "tossed" has more character. Anywho, after I got past what was, at the time, a major decision of the dim light that wouldn't wake Raiden as much or the brighter light so that I could actually see, I opened the diaper to discover only a very small amount of poop. And here I'd thought he was swimming in it. Whatever, process started, let's just change the diaper. After I wiped his bottom and pulled the diaper off, I noticed, too, that the diaper wasn't nearly as wet as an overnight diapers should be, which clued me in that I should probably hurry it up with the whole 'putting the clean diaper on' part.
Yeah, too late. I look over to see a nice calm stream of baby pee. At least it isn't hitting the ceiling, I thought, as I reached over to cover the pee stream with the fresh diaper. Not a big deal, pee is easy to clean up.
Except that then, I saw that he wasn't just peeing. Oh, crap. Literally. The gushy, gooey kind. The gross kind that one does not want to deal with being all over her child, her child's clothing, a towel that was laid across the changing table and the changing table itself at 6:30 in the morning.
So, I did what any amazing mommy would do: I yelled into the baby monitor for help from Dad. And then waited to hear footsteps as I was trying to keep a squirmy' baby's feet out of a puddle of poo. Wait. Wait. No footsteps. "Seriously, I could really use an extra pair of hands down here!" I yelled a second time. My plan was, fuck the nightshirt and when Rich got downstairs, ask him to just hand me a pair of goddamn scissors so I could cut the shirt off and not have to make the mess even worse than it was trying to get my child out of it. Wait. Wait. Still no footsteps. Still holding baby feet out of a puddle of poo. Fuck, I'm doing this alone.
I decided to see just how far a onesie could stretch to get sleepy baby arms through the holes and the neck of the shirt over the head without smearing poo more places than it was already smeared. I didn't do too bad - the shirt pulled up his back a bit, but the puddle generally stayed put. Since the shirt was already, shall we say, soiled, I figured using the clean part to wipe up the bulk of Raiden's body wouldn't do any harm. After I got the bulk of it with the shirt, I grabbed a couple of wipes to get the rest of the large chunks, just enough to be able to carry him to the bath.
Somewhere in the middle of this, I yelled "Help!" in the direction of the baby monitor again, just to make myself feel better.
Raiden, of course, decides that while I'm cleaning him off, it would be fun to grab the shirt and drag it up his side, to the head of the changing table, and then when I took it away from him, to grab the wooden slats on the changing table and spread the poo around a bit to the places it hadn't already made it. Okay, so the cleaning him up to carry him to the tub just wasn't going to work. His legs and feet were still clean, and so was his right arm and hand, and part of his left arm, so I picked him up by the latter two, stood his dirty naked body down on the floor, held his clean hand and told him, "Let's walk to the bath."
Luckily, there were no mishaps along the way. I was sad for him, though, because he really likes to snuggle a while when he wakes up and I was really not going for that at this point because, ew.
So, we got to the bathroom, I got the water going and decided to just hose him off under the faucet. He was still sleepy and clingy, so I sat on the edge of the tub with my legs/feet in there with him so he could hug my leg as I washed him (and my own arms/hands) off under the water. Eventually he started waking up and warmed up to the idea of the tub, and around the same time, MIL showed up so I asked her to stand there with him while I went to clean up the changing table. Everything went straight in the washer. I later remembered that I forgot to put in soap.
Raiden pooped more in the tub, but given the rest of the morning, I was pretty okay with that.
Getting Raiden dressed and ready was accomplished with no further trauma. I hopped in the shower immediately after MIL left with Raiden. Rich came downstairs right as I was finishing up, and after he kissed me good morning, I told him, "I think from now on, when I come downstairs to be with Raiden in the middle of the night, I'm turning the baby monitor all the way up before I head down, so that way you can hear me when I yell for help three times." He agreed. I don't expect anything to come of it.
He got ready for jury duty as I got ready for my dentist appointment, both of which started at 9:00. (Thank God I had that appointment or I would have been very late for work.) He had to get there early and get gas on the way, so he left about 15-20 minutes before I needed to. I was proud of myself, I'd actually gotten ready on time for my appointment. I had my purse, my phone, my glasses, my shoes on and everything by 8:45. I reached to grab my keys to leave and... saw Rich's keys on the table. Don't panic, I told myself, as the fact that he'd took my keys to drive his car reminded me that we'd had the spare keys made, finally, so I could just take his keys to my car and be fine. Except when I looked, my key was not on his keychain. This really didn't surprise me; he does stuff like taking random keys off his keychain if he doesn't use them often, or taking random cards out of his wallet if he doesn't think he'll need them, because, you know, keys and cards take up so much room anyway, and we really need to be efficient like that. However, not surprising me and this being a pattern of behavior, did not exactly get me a means with which to drive my car. Fuck.
It was only 8:45, so I called Rich hoping to catch him before jury duty had started. And I did. When he answered, I said, "Well, apparently my key for your car works beautifully." "Uh, okay? Why?" "Because you have my keys." "...Ohhhh craaaaap." "So, do you know where my spare key is?" "No? Unless maybe in the drawer?" "I'm looking in the drawer. Stop losing things!" We brainstorm ways that he could leave my keys at the front desk or something, but all ideas had the flaw of me having to have transportation to get them and there being no way to have this happen before my 9:00 dentist appointment. The key, of course, was not in the drawer. He suggested calling his mom, but between her yapping, the fact that she was at least 15 minutes away, and my general complaint that she drags Raiden around in the car too much, anyway, I didn't see that as a feasible option. Rich had to get off the phone. We hung up. I swore. And then I remembered that Rich's brother, Tony, works just a mile or two away from my house, and has a company car that he can use instead of his own for work errands during the day.
So, I called Tony. "Hey, what are you doing right now?" "Trying to take a nap." "Oh. Are you at home again today?" "No." "... Well, my next question was gonna be 'are you really busy at work right now' but I guess that answered that question." I gave him the gist of the story and asked if there were any way I could borrow his car for just part of the day, and he had no problem with that at all. Suh weet. He was at the house to pick me up within 5 minutes, during which time I called the dentist office to let them know that Rich wouldn't be there at all due to jury duty, and, funny story, he took my keys and I'd be late. I thanked Tony profusely and made plans to meet with him on lunch to get his car back to him. I also made mental plans to buy his lunch because he really pulled through for me.
The best part of the day was that I made it to the dentist appointment only 11 minutes late. The dental assistant was waiting for me when I got there, and on the way back to the room, the other assistant grinned at me and giggled, and the dentist asked if I needed an extra set of keys. "Luckily my brother-in-law works very close to my house," I said. The other good news is that I have healthy teeth.
Next on the agenda was to head up to the clinic and get my blood drawn for all the lab work I'd had ordered. On the other end of town, of course, but not a big deal, just a time consumer. And of course, the first time she stuck me, she missed, then dug around until I said ow, but after she switched arms and used the butterfly needle, all was well. So, moving on.
Rich called about 45 minutes after I got to work, while he was on lunch from jury duty, to try and figure out a way to get our keys switched out. His idea was, he'd tell me where he was going to park, put my keys in the console and leave the car unlocked, then I could somehow get a ride there - from Tony, maybe - to get my keys, leave his in the console with the car unlocked, then have Tony take me to the house to get my car. My plan had just been to have Tony bring me back to work on lunch and have MIL bring me home, which was a lot simpler, but Rich thought unnecessary due to his brilliant plan. As he was trying to explain to me which building he'd be parked at, I asked how long his lunch break was, anyway. "One of the witnesses didn't show, so I actually have like an hour and a half." "...If you have an hour and a half break, why don't you swing by here and give me my keys?" "...Oh. I guess I could do that." *headdesk*
He stopped by later to swap keys, and while he was here, he ate two of the rice krispy treats The AS had made for my birthday, and helped fix a server issue. It worked out nicely.
When lunch time rolled around, Tony called and we decided to meet for some Japanese food (along with Toby) to get his car back to him. I mentioned earlier I was gonna pay for his lunch, right? I of course realized as I was pulling out of the parking lot that I forgot to check our spending account to make sure I had enough money to even pay for myself, let alone a second person. Fuck. I text messaged Google to get the number for the bank's customer service, and paid a $2 charge to transfer over $30 (which was about $10 more than I thought I needed, but just in case), and ended up with a balance that indicated I had plenty of money to start with and the transfer + $2 charge to do it were completely unnecessary. *Sigh* Oh well, at least I could eat my hibachi chicken without worrying if the card would clear.
Tony dropped me off at the house after lunch. I got my car. I got back to work. No further problems.
Except don't get me started on The Tool who likes stepping on my toes where the Web site is concerned, but that's an entirely different story.
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This morning, Raiden woke up at 5:00 a.m. and immediately climbed out of bed ready to play. I should add that he slept from 9:30 until 5, by himself, and when he fussed at 2 a.m. he was back asleep before I even got downstairs, so that's a positive, but still, being bright and awake at 5:00 is not. He ran to the doorway, turned back to look at me and I heard a splat sound. At least it was in his diaper this time. I sighed and rolled out of bed and glared at the baby monitor because, really, what was the point, and chased Raiden around to get him to let me change his diaper. He was having none of that, so I figured it couldn't hurt just to let him play for a few minutes before we attempted The Diaper Change. About two minutes later he squatted, felt of his diaper for a second, stood up, and had leaked poo-goo onto the carpet. And then immediately stepped in it.
Sssoooooo... to the changing table we went, I rolled up the very small portion of his shirt that got dirty and pulled it off of him, cleaned him up, grabbed his sippy cup, a towel and the carpet cleaner and went back into the living room. I sat him on the couch with his water and asked him to stay there while Mommy cleaned the floor. He did, and I caught it fresh enough that it came right up. Much better than yesterday, though I wish I had any idea what's causing him to have runny stools again.
I washed my hands and made him a bottle, thinking we could lay back down and at least I could get some more rest while he drank it, even if he didn't fall back asleep. He did, but I didn't, though at least he was quite snuggly. He was even still asleep while I had to get up and ready to leave for work. Little jerk. :)
And before I let Rich leave for work, I checked to make sure my car keys were still in the same spot on the table as they were last night when I put a sticky note next to them that said, "Karyn's."
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