A Day in the Life of a Parent

Originally Written November 2006

Today began well enough. The air was cool and brisk, birds were chirping, rays of golden sunshine floated into our living room like little amber-colored butterflies. Angels sang. Beautiful orchestral music played in the background. Humming and singing, Emily and I prepared for church. Little did we know, the golden sunbeams and singing choirs would give way to some of the most dark, foreboding storm clouds of despair and utter darkness our lives had yet experienced. And one of us would need to change our clothes at least once.

Alright, I’ll cut the drama here. As I said, it started well enough. Emily had to sing in a six person choir today, and was rather frantic about getting ready. We practiced together, in the sense that I hit various keys on the piano trying to find the right notes, and she attempted to guess which ones were the real notes. Almost like a game. (This was the “angels singing” part). When she felt sufficiently confused, she grabbed her things, and rushed to church.

I followed shortly behind, getting Abbie ready calmly, and sweetly. I chose the dress and the little accessories that would make her appear the absolute darlingest and sweetest and cutest possible, (OK, I grabbed whatever I saw first) and prepared to head for church. However, I was stopped in my tracks as I heard the ominous sound of a dirty diaper.

Diaper Change Number 1.

I was then late. I tried to run the couple hundred yards to church, but I had played football on Thursday, and had played much harder than I should have. Thus, today, due to tight muscles in every part of my body from the arches of my feet to my neck (I’m not kidding here), I ran as would an old woman in an ankle length pencil skirt, giving me a range of motion of about three inches. I ran in this manner as fast as I could, my feet never technically leaving the ground as I shuffled along.

I made it in time for the sacrament hymn. Emily and I were able to enjoy the meeting together, reveling in the deep thoughts and the wonderful feelings of the day. Up until about 5 minutes after the sacrament was finished. Abbie pooped and was being very fussy, and since Emily had to sing with the choir in a couple minutes, I stepped out to change:

Diaper Number 2.

She sat calmly on the changing table, at least calmly compared to say, a chimpanzee. She kicked and wiggled like some sort of motorized toy. After setting up the arsenal of equipment I would need for the ensuing three minute battle, I removed the dirty diaper. She kicked and wiggled as I reached for the wipes. She looked up at me and smiled quietly. Cute, normally, but as most parents know, this is the urgent signal that she more than likely … yup … peed all over herself.

The changing tables in our church sort of dip in from the edges, like a soap dish, apparently in order to collect every bit of pee into one giant pool, in which she lay smack-dab in the middle of, like a little pink island. Needless to say, she was soaked. I burst out laughing, hopelessly.

Let me give you a little background. Despite my appearances, and despite most rumors I tend to hear, I am not necessarily the, quote, “Rambo” of germs as some are wont to believe. More accurately, when it comes to diaper changes, I tend to approach them as though I were disarming a heat-sensitive nuclear warhead. Needless to say, this presented a bit of a predicament. How does one deal with a pee-covered baby without touching pee?

She continued to kick, and when I sat her up, she instantaneously grabbed the dirty diaper and pulled it straight toward her mouth. Sensing the danger in this, I grabbed her and whipped the diaper into the garbage before she had the chance.

How the heck do you carry a baby who’s soaked in pee, you’re probably asking? Coincidentally, I pondered the same question. “How?” I queried out loud. “What?” the guy behind me asked. Ignoring his question, I whisked her up, avoiding her pee-soaked clothing with surgical precision. Had I been thinking, I would have ejected all 25 feet of paper towels from the dispenser, and wrapped her up like a little paper papoose.

The real trick was this: she was soaked, halfway up her back, right? So how the heck do I get her home, 300 yards away in the cold, without getting her coat and blanket and stroller soaked in pee? Not knowing the answer to such a difficult question, and having too little time to figure it out, I simply threw it all in the stroller on top of her and ran (you may remember what an effective measure this was.)

Obviously, this story is getting out of hand. The edited version now begins: I changed her, and went to church. 15 minutes later, she pooped again, loud enough for everyone within eight feet to hear, turn, and laugh. I stood, not believing it was possible. She had not eaten this much! There’s no way!! Then, I noticed she had somehow managed to get poop on my shirt, as well as all up her back. Amazing, considering that I was holding her upright.

Diaper Change Number 3.

To make a long story short, I believe today, I took the sacrament, listened to five minutes of a talk, went to 15 minutes of Sunday School, and witnessed half the prayer of Priesthood, and as of 5:30 pm, have changed in the range of 6 or 7 diapers, counting this morning. Man, being a Dad is awesome.

The Pluses (Pli) and Minuses (Mini) of English

Recently, I was rooting all over through my backpack looking for several of my danged class syllabuses that were mysteriously missing, when it occurred to me what the problem was: I was in fact looking for several syllabi. This is based on the fact that words ending in “us,” when there are more than one of them, quite logically have their “us’es” replaced with “i’s,” as is clearly illustrated by the words cacti, octopi, fungi, multipli and Fung Schuei. (Our sources can’t fully verify that last one). Let’s illustrate this further with a little exercise:

When you are out catching the bus, and there is more than one bus, you would logically not be catching several buses, right? You would in fact be catching several bi. (The only problem with that is, obviously, one cannot physically catch several bi, but would only catch one bus.) But the point is made. And if it’s all of us catching the bi, and there’s more than one of us, then it would not be us at all: but rather i! So the correct grammar in this instance is “all seven of i were catching the bi, and we dun missed every derned one of em. All of i then had to walk, through miles of cacti, fungi, octopi, mooses, and wallri. To top it all off, we were each named Russ, making us a group of Ri.”

In summary, English is definitely not a language for wusses. I mean wi.