July 2008

Welcome to my July journal! A lot of things happened this month. For one thing, we performed at the Tall Ships 2008 Festival in Tacoma, Washington. The rest of the month saw Ronn & Jef and their wives doing time at the Colorado Renaissance Festival, while yours truly enjoyed the single life in Savage, Minnesota. I attended a party or three at Chez Dehkes - one of which celebrated a birthday for our good friend, Eric Ledlum.

 

Team Tortuga, guest starring Mary Egan

Ronn's a Seaman

That Jef!

You'll see the pictures on some of these things, but I'm not going to go in depth on them. Instead, I'm going to open a window to a life experience I had. I hope you enjoy my anecdote.

And now, without further ado...

THE POOPIE DIAPER STORY

Recently, I have brushed up against the fine profession of babysitting. This doesn't mean that I've been rubbing on the hottie babysitter. Oh, no-no-no nay. I have been babysitting (three times, thus far) for friends I have been staying with. Now, this may surprise you. Most of you do not believe me to be a baby-friendly person. I am, but not without mucho trial & error. Case in point: the dreaded Poopie Diaper Incident. That's right I changed my first poopie diaper. And what a hilarious experience that was. Sit back, relax, and let me regale ya a tale or two.

 

Melissa Dehkes with Birthday-Boy Eric

Joshua helps Eric blow out his candles

Don't feed me Sugar! You wouldn't like me when I'm high on Sugar!

I was in command of the home one evening with Jacob (7) and Joshua (2) Dehkes left in my charge. Not a difficult thing at all. Jacob entertains himself with video games while Joshua roams the home, entertaining himself with everything else. See? Easy-peasy. Soon I will have to put the young one to bed, and with only one instruction: change him into a nite-nite diaper. This way, he will not be sent a-bed with a pee-pee diaper.

Again: easy-peasy...

...until it becomes deucedly obvious that Joshua does not have a pee-pee diaper. He has, in fact, moved on to stage two. The excrement has hit the wind-blowing device, and it has begun to physically assault our nostrils. Mom & Dad are hours from coming home. It is becoming painfully clear that I am about to have an encounter I have managed to avoid for all of my adult life. Yikes!

The first thing was to enlist the aid of Jacob, the Older. Not happy, but amused, he agreed to help. I believe he was enjoying the higher pitch the growing panic was instilling in my voice.

Next, we arranged a clear spot on the carpet (where I had seen him changed before). This being my "first time," I couldn't have Baby Joshua rolling around and doing a header onto the floor whilst I reached for the baby powder or some other necessary item. Baby powder - now that would have been a good idea.

 

What's everybody looking at?!

Blender Bruce to the Margarita Rescue!

But, I digress.

So, all was in order and I was ready to go.

I sat there...surveying, dreading, my eyes wide as I stared at the unopened Diaper of Evil. What if I messed up? What if I so messed up that Joshua spore went everywhere? The carpet, the television (nearby), the ceiling... Okay, maybe not the ceiling. But, then again, you never know.

I steeled my resolve and held my breath, then slowly unpeeled the sticky tabs holding the diaper together. Egad, it smelled worse on the inside. Finally, I opened the diaper and - lo and behold - it was not the brown-mashed-potato mess that I'd been expecting! It was little balls of poop. Imagine my relief. But, I still had a job to do.

Little balls or no, it's still poop. I grabbed the tyke's two ankles in one hand and hoisted him off the diaper. I began what I call wiping, but what actually turned into more like smearing. I even managed to get some on his little schmeckle. At this point, it has become quite clear to young Joshua that I didn't know what the hell I was doing - Jacob could tell that from the get go.

Joshua got more fussy and squirmy - not unlike a horse when he realized he has a greenhorn at the reins - while I tried to grab more and more wet naps. Somewhere in all the commotion, one of those blessed little balls of poop...rolled onto the carpet. Ewwww! Okay, it was maintaining its consistency, so we were still good there...but ewwww!

 

Newlyweds Eric & Alyssa like to try new things

Bruce assists with Joshua's slam dunk

Joshua & Jacob

Here the baby begins the actual crying. I'm not too far from it either. With a quick sigh of exasperation, I scooped up the errant ball of poop (wet nap) and placed it in the soiled diaper. With many apologies, I finished my wiping job (including his schmeckle), then placed a nite-nite diaper under him and lowered away. At one point, I think I actually had it set backwards, but Jacob corrected me before any real damage was done. A fold here, a tuck there, some taping with the already-provided sticky taping tabs...and I was done.

"You forgot to put on the butt paste."

I turned to Jacob. "What?"

"The butt paste. For his rash," he said. There was not emotion in his voice. He just said it all matter-of-fact...like I should've known.

Ah, hell no! There was no way I was going to rip open a perfectly good diaper and slather on butt paste. Fortunately, there hadn't been any rash, so we got lucky. Besides, the application of butt paste is a 2^nd Level Ability. I'm only a 1^st Level Diaper Changer. I'll get it next time; you can count on it.

So there you have it. The Poopie Diaper Story. More than you bargained for in this journal. Everything went fine after that, and, yes, I will babysit again. But, if I take anything away from this experience, all I can say is Thank God for little balls of poop.

 

Rock Band Wii

Why am I singing?!

Tortugas after hours