A bedtime story

So finally it happened. Something that has never happened before, for us. Not saying I'm proud of it, or anything. I guess it just means I can sympathize with other parents in yet another of these "oh crap" parenting situations.

We had one of those days. You know. The kind where you collapse into bed and wonder at how on earth you (and your offspring) survived the day.

The Bean has arrived at the place where she needs between one and two naps a day. This adds to our daily disaster in strange and frustrating ways.

It was only six in the evening and she was froot-looping it bad. Bouncing off the walls (literally), laughing like some kind of evil maniac who had escaped the psycho ward (she is my daughter, after all), shaking the kitchen table so violently she spilled the boys cups... she stopped, briefly, when she heard our rooster crow. She crowed back at him through the window, and then went racing into the other room and attacked the furniture.

It was too early for bedtime but really, what could I do?

We use flat cloth diapers during the day, but at night she uses her Cadillac of a cloth diaper, the BumGenius 3.0. We have only one. I wash it every day. It has velcro closures. She likes to take it off as soon as I put it on her.

The plot thickens...

It was hot in the house. HOT. And humid too.

I made a gut wrenching decision to put her to bed in only her diaper. Why? Because she was so darn tired, I knew she was going to just go right to sleep once I laid her down. Plus, her short sleeved onesies that I normally lock her diaper into were all dirty, so I really had no other option.

We did our thing, she was sufficiently distracted, and to bed she went like a happy obedient little snuggly lamb.

Appearances can be deceiving.

Forty-three freaking minutes later she let loose a blood-curdling screech.

FAIL! I knew what it meant.

I snuck up the stairs and peeked through the crack of her barely open door, only to see her bare naked little crack peeking back at me. Sure enough, there were two wet puddles in her bed. She'd nailed her favorite blankie, along with the discarded BumGenius, but the party had been much wilder than that.

She had pooped.

Had she not squealed mid-squish with the poop in her hand, it would have been far worse. Sometimes the only way I stay sane (I mean, beyond my normal level of insanity) is by convincing myself that it could always be worse. Always. It could be. How that would be possible, I'm not always sure, but it helps to imagine it anyway.

The party travelled with her into the tub, nearly an hour after I put her to bed.



With the BumGenius out of service, I panicked, but then rejoiced upon finding a disposable diaper in the bottom of our diaper bag. I gathered up her bedding and remembered that I was out of laundry soap. It's not a big deal. I make my own. Why was the jug empty? Because I am queen of not doing something now if I can put it off until later. Later had arrived.

Things could always be worse.

My husband was home. He chaperoned her bath-tub party so I could take care of all the dirty business. Thank God. And then he put the boys to bed while I snuggled my little force-of-nature a second time.

And wouldn't you know it, there was a short-sleeved onesie in her dresser, the entire time.