So, I wake up at 6:45am this morning to the baby having a little cry. No problem, one of us (usually Michelle because it takes a bit to wake me up) will jump up, pop her soother in and she drops back off to sleep until we're all up around 8am.
On this particular morning, Michelle stirred and defiantly rolled away from the sound which was her pre-dawn hint to me to get off my butt to go and deal with it. I slid out of bed, stumbled to the baby's room and tried not to fall down the stairwell as I gathered my bearings in the doorway.
There wasn't much time to sort myself out. Charlotte was on the verge of winding up and I knew I had to act - fast unless the baby wakes the missus up! I stumble into the nursery, fumble around in all the blankets for the soother, turn over 50 stuffed toys and glow worms and finally locate a fluff encrusted dummy equals peace and quiet in our house...
Poor girl, Charlotte was so tired and upset that as soon as she took the soother, she closed her eyes and rolled over to try and go back to sleep. One problem. Her nose was blocked, so she ended up mouth breathing around the sides of the dummy that was sucking inwards with each breath and acting as a plug. Sure enough, after two breaths - POP! Out the soother came. The crying starts again - only this time, louder.
In desperation and rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I tried two more times to reinstall the pacifier in the hopes that she would figure it out herself and I would be able to go back to bed. To her credit, she really did want to take it from me and just roll over and go back to sleep, but the whole 'unable to breath' situation was becoming a bit of an issue and eventually the soother came over the side of the crib with a 'rejected' sticker on it, accompanies by an almighty roar...
Okay, so it was time to get up after all. I shook off the last of the drowsiness and reached into the crib to grab the screaming baby. Poor wee girl, she was really upset. Her small body was rigid with fury and who could blame her? She had a really snotty nose! If I could have sniffed for her and coughed for her, I would have... believe me!
The pitch in her voice only reached higher as I laid her down on the change table and started changing her little bum. That's when it happened...
Before I tell you what happened, you need to know the backstory. Lately, Charlotte has been having a little trouble with digesting cereal and other things we're giving her as she moves away from relying on the bottle, and more and more onto solid food. The by-product is some very dry and solid poos! Say no more...
Sure enough, as soon as I release the waist straps in my semi-conscious state, a singular pebbly poo, (similar to that found behind a baby lamb), escapes from the elastic confines of the Pampers 'dual action core', bounces once on the side of the change table, skips off the side of my pyjama leg and slams into the floor before rolling under the crib well beyond my care factor and my reach.
I decided that to find that little stow-a-way, I'd have to get down on my hands and knees and right now, Dad has his hands full with Charlotte, and Charlotte needed her Dad to be paying attention to her. That was a job for the daytime anyway - (so I dealt with that one later)...
Anyway, Charlotte finally stopped her squawking... but the ordeal wasn't over. During my fixation with the elusive runaway baby beans, I neglected to notice that while I was holding Tiggy's ankles above her head to wipe her bum, she now had a steady torrent of warm piddle running all the way down her back!!! Wait, it gets worse...
Without realising, I put my hand in the warm patch which caused me to flinch. Because I'm still holding onto Charlotte I accidentally bump her little head against the side of the change table - which in turn causes her to start up again, only this time much, much louder...
Man, talk about feeling guilty. I almost handed myself into Child, Youth and Family!
Michelle must have given up on trying to sleep through all the noise and was well and was truly woken by the second round of crying. (By now, I guess I was crying too - on the inside of course).
The wife came charging into the nursery with a concerned and bewildered look on her face which eventually turned to accusation.
After a lot of 'Shushing' and fumbling accompanied with apologies from the old man, I finally had the baby changed, (including all her pee drenched clothes) and was all too happy to hand her off to Mum and run the other way.
"Work!" I thought, "The day can't get any worse than it already is. I might as well go to work!"
"Sorry my girl, I've really gotta go!" Besides, I live here so I can always try again tomorrow...
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