Epic Diaper Fail: A Babyzilla Story
A post inspired by the word diaper?
I’ve so got this.
There are some family stories that become legendary the moment they happen. They are the stories that are so completely unbelievable, that they simply have to be true. You know the kind – the ones that make people say “wow, you can’t make up stuff this good.”
It’s true – you really can’t.
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Being a new parent is all kinds of wonderful and horrible wrapped up in one sweet-smelling little package. Nothing quite prepares you for the sleepless nights or the number of diaper changes that one small little person can rack up.
When Kidzilla was born, Fab Hub and I were lucky enough to have some time off together to get to know our Baby Girl. At the time, we were both teachers, and Zilla was born right smack at the end of the school year. We had all summer ahead of us to rest, recover, and figure out what to do with this beautiful and energetic little package we brought home from the hospital. Perfect.
All too soon, though, it was time to head back to school. We knew it had to be done, but in many ways, we were nowhere near prepared for both of us to be thrust so abruptly back into our full-time routines plus run the gauntlet of new-parent experiences. During that first week of school, we were both all kinds of tired and at least one of us was stressed beyond belief trying to figure out how these new roles were all going to work together with the old ones and whether or not having two working parents was going to scar our child for life.
About two days in, Kidzilla was having a particularly rough night and needed some late-night attention. Or was it very early morning? I guess it just really depends how you look at it. Anyway, after a fast game of Rock Paper Scissors, the Fab Hub (because he really is just that Fab) took a turn at heading down the hallway to tend to Kidzilla. “Go back to sleep,” he said. “You need the rest. We’ll be fine.”
In my half-sleeping fog, I heard him pad down the hall, pick her up, and whisper to her. Yawn. I heard them settle into the rocking chair and get comfortable. All seemed well and perhaps I drifted back to sleep. And then…
“Zilla! Nooooooooooo!”
I jumped out of bed and flew down the hall to find the Fab Hub looking with horrified surprise at the child in his arms.
“What’s wrong?”
“She pooped on me. It’s evvvvvryyyyyywheeeeeere!”
And indeed, there was a sizeable amount of slimy wet baby poop outside of Zilla’s diaper and on her Fab Dad. I thought he might just cry.
Now, not everyone is so terribly upset by a little baby poop on their person. It happens. In my family, there’s been a baby around on an average of every five years from my Mom right down to the youngest great-grandchild who is now just a couple of months old. A poopy baby diaper is standard drill. It’s important to note here, though, that the Fab Hub hadn’t exactly grown up around small children and his experience with babies, diapers, and poop was limited to the three short months of Zilla’s life thus far. He was a willing partner in the diaper-changing responsibilities, but this little diaper fail was a whole new experience for him.
I quickly took Zilla off his hands. He must have been in shock, because he just sort of stood there looking stunned and asked, “What do I do?”
I suggested he shed his soiled garments and take a shower. He proceeded to strip on the spot.
“Not here!”
“Well where?”
“In the bathroom! Where else?”
“Oh, OK.”
And off he went…all the way down the hall, through our bedroom, and into our bathroom dripping little blops of baby-rrhea all the way instead of just going the five steps to Zilla’s bathroom right next door.
(palm to forehead here)
Figuring we’d deal with that little problem after we got Zilla cleaned up and back to sleep, I went about the business of peeling off her messy clothes and cleaning her up. No problem, right? Not so.
“Zilla, no! Oh nooooooooooo!”
The Fab Hub came running down the hall at top speed.
“What happened? Is everybody OK?”
And then he saw it.
There was baby poop everywhere. You see, in the midst of the poop and the stunned husband covered in said poop and the total new-Mommy exhaustion, I failed to remember one very important detail. If a baby has just shit herself silly, it’s probably a good idea to cover up her precious little tuchus while cleaning her up. Just in case.
Zilla had, of course, pooped at precisely the moment I grabbed her little feet and lifted her butt up off the changing pad to wipe away the last of the first poop. Please note that when a baby has a bowel movement of the baby-rrhea variety in this position, what you get is projectile poop. Forceful projectile poop. Poop that sprays out of the baby with such power as to burst forth in an arc-like path hitting every spot from said baby to the changing table, the lamp on the changing table, the wall next to the changing table, the floor, the rocking chair, the floor on the other side of the chair, and finally the closet door on the opposite wall of the room. Miraculously, the only thing in the room that was untouched by the arc of flying poop was the Mommy, frozen in place watching it sail overhead.
We both stood in stunned silence, our mouths wide open. It was our first week back to work, we were exhausted, Zilla was (clearly) not feeling well, it was 2:30 in the morning, and our Daughter’s bedroom was covered in poop.
We burst out laughing.
I can only think that we did so because if we hadn’t, we would have sat right down and cried. As we laughed, I looked over at the Fab Hub and discovered that the man was naked. Remember, he had gone down the hall to take a shower when Zilla let loose poop number two.
“Hon. You’re naked.”
“What?”
“You’re naked.”
He checked. He was indeed naked.
“Oh, OK.” And off he went, presumably to get dressed and find cleaning supplies.
I got Zilla cleaned and settled in her crib and the Fab Hub returned with cleaning supplies…sponges, brushes, Clorox wipes, carpet cleaner. He brought an arsenal.
“I didn’t know what we’d need so I brought it all,” he said.
Good call. Zilla cooed pleasantly in her crib while we got to work on the room…we wiped down the table, the lamp, scrubbed the walls (oh, did I mention they were painted a lovely shade of eggshell?), wiped down the closet doors, went after the upholstery on the rocking chair (tan, by the way)…we worked for more than an hour and then turned to the carpet (yup, also tan). We discovered, too, that there is such a thing as too much Resolve carpet cleaner and it is nearly impossible to get rid of all those suds. We were both down on our hands and knees at 4:00 AM scrubbing the daylights out of the carpet and found ourselves laughing once again.
My heart swelled with love. We were both pitching in to deal with Zilla and the poop. We were not crying or screaming at one another. We were going to be OK. I looked over at the Fab Hub, wanting to say something, only to discover that he was down on his hands and knees…scrubbing away…still completely naked.
“Oh my God! You’re still naked!”
“What?”
He checked, found this to be true, and yelled “holy shit!”
And that was the part where we lost it completely.
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I’m busting a gut reading this! Hysterical that you guys were so focused on cleaning up all the baby poop everywhere and didn’t realize he never put clothes on. Ugh to 4 am baby clean up.
As a friend said to me today, a poop story is a poop story, even if it’s projectile. What makes this one hysterical is the naked husband.
Lisa, I remember projectile poop like it was yesterday. It was a fairly disgusting habit and I’m glad they don’t do it anymore.
Yes, big kid projectile poop would be horrific. The baby version was bad enough!
I’m slightly horrified as I’ve never had a child before… though I have had some experience in changing nappies, well, of a child that was nearly 2, so I guess that doesn’t count. Oh my goodness, thanks for the warning! I guess they don’t write about projective pooping in baby books? =/
On an amusing note… I wonder how Zilla would react to this when she’s able to read!
They definitely don’t tell you these things about the babies before you get them. It’s amazing how quickly you become desensitized, though – oh, I’m pooped on again? Oh well…
I think we’re going to hold off telling Zilla this story until we’re certain she’s too old to think it would be a cool idea to try re-creating it.
HA! This is fabulous! Not because it happened to you, but because of how you handled it. I have often found myself in the “laugh so you don’t cry” place when it comes to parenting. However, I am pleased to report that projectile poop is something that I have never dealt with. Projectile vomit, on the other hand… I’m an expert on that. Dropping by from Mama Kat’s!
Hi, MJ and thanks for coming by. We have been very lucky in the vomit department – Zilla rarely does it. (Knock on wood.)
Oh, the joys of parenting 🙂
Wait, poop on the wall is a joy??? I’m so doing it wrong.
You are right–this story is EPIC.
I told you this was a good one! 🙂
What a great and hilarious story!! I have been pooped on so many times. Baby poop is the absolute worst!
It’s pretty bad. And my poor Hub always manages to be the one who gets pooped on!
LOVE THIS. Clearly cleaning up poop was more important than clothing!
Clearly.
This story was great! I was laughing so hard and you are right you can’t make this stuff up!
It’s probably one of our best stories to date. We both laughed so hard we cried just re-living it.
What a memorable introduction to parenthood.
That’s definitely one way to look at it!
HOLY baby poop madness! That sealed the deal for me–no more babies. Only teasing, that decision was made long ago. But seriously, it is soo great that you laughed instead of screaming.
Yes, we have one. No more poop. 🙂 Laughing really was the only option – especially with the naked Husband factor. Thanks for coming by!
It’s been a shitty week for you, hasn’t it? First cat poop, now this 🙂
My son was a Master projectile pooper. He blew out a minimum of one diaper a day, squirting poop up his back and out the leg openings of his diaper. And he also had one of the exposed butt episodes; he shot poop three feet, from his place on the changing table to the window, not only hitting the mini blinds but also going all the way through them to the glass. Good times.
Well, the baby poop was five years ago. But I can tell you that the cat poop and the baby poop have been the hot topics on my blog this week. Who knew poop was such a conversation generator? 🙂
My sister did one of those out the leg things as a baby – poop outside the diaper, all up and down her body inside her sleeper. Not a drop in the diaper. Clean as a whistle. Now that’s a trick!
haha, the joys of parenting. Such a gross story, but I just had to keep reading to see what happened. Thanks for the heads up for what babies are capable of doing. This will come in handy if I become a parent one day. Ah, the restless nights and poop covered clothes. At least you guys have a good sense of humor about it. It seems like that would be really important especially under such gross circumstances.
The sense of humor is the best weapon for such occurrences. As the saying goes, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. This was exactly one of those times.
that is epic indeed!
my husband was also inexperienced with babies. he learned pretty quickly, but the amount of poop that could come out of such a small human really surprised him. when the baby was a newborn and pooping 10 times a day he kept saying “AGAIN?! how is that even POSSIBLE?!”
That sounds familiar! Pretty sure my Hub was amazed at that, too.
Oh my gosh my husband would have reacted exactly the same if one of our babies had a diaper fail all over him. It doesn’t help when we’re all operating on less sleep too. This was so funny!
This is one of our all-time greats, that’s for sure!
Oh, my gosh! That was hysterical!!! So glad you guys were able to work together, though. And laugh. Bet you were really tired the next day, though.
We were beyond tired. But yes, one of the best things we took away was the realization that we could work together, laugh a little, and come out OK. We’re a pretty good team and that approach has served us well more than once!
That is too damned funny! I just laughed myself to tears here. We all have a gross story (or two or three) to tell. We don’t have to make it up; they just naturally give it to us. I’m glad that the two of you were able to see the humour in the situation even in the wee hours of the night/morning.
These are the best stories, I think. Gross or not, it’s reality! Thanks for visiting!
I love this story..sure the poop and nakedness is funny, but that you both were able to laugh during it!!
Never had that kind of poop experience..at least not from the kids!
Hmm…not sure I want to know about that one! 🙂
Hahahaha! Awesome story! Totally deserve a spot in the family history books 🙂
I know…it really is awesome.
This made my day!!!! LOVE THIS!!
Hi, Mary, and welcome. Yes, it makes mine, too! Thanks for coming by. 🙂
Can’t say that I’ve had an experience like that, but I have had a few poop moments with my two girls. 🙂 Thanks for sharing. I look forward to reading more – thanks for stopping over at my blog, too. 🙂
Same here – I jut put you on my follow list!
This is probably the most hilarious poop story I’ve ever read.
And everyone knows they are ALL hilarious, so you’ve got a great one here.
It’s a classic. And now by far the number one most popular post on my blog. Who knew poop was such a hit?
Who would have thought when you took those vows that it is things like this that strengthens the bond?! It is true though…I guess maybe a little like war buddies that grow closer through adversity, it is the challenges of marriage that make us stronger. Sleep deprived carpet cleaning qualifies!
I think if people knew there would be scenes like these, no one would get married or have children! Tell you what, though, I think I’d rather have the life and marriage where we have these bond-strengthening challenges than one with no tales to tell.
[…] You learn to tolerate spit on your clothing. You are unimpressed by projectile vomit. (Projectile poop is another story for another time, […]
This is such a cute story!! Poop never bothered me at all… vomit did!!
I feel the same way!
This is hilarious but it’s also very sweet. 🙂
Seven years later, it’s still one of our favorite stories, Leslie! 😀