Melt Down #3 Averted

Max has been an eating and pooping machine this evening. He is finally out like a light or a rag doll in what my sister calls a food comma. It is so funny and cute to see. Max's life between 4:30 – 10 pm -- Eat, Poop, Get Diaper changed. Repeat. I’m not complaining. I am thrilled. With each poop and pee bilirubin is getting released from his system.

I was so tired this morning getting out of bed was rough, but I made it. After taking the dogs out, I fed Max and could have so easily gone back to sleep, but took Max to get his blood drawn again. While it’s a pain, it is for a good cause and I am meeting interesting people along the way. Rose, the lab tech/nurse that has been drawing Max’s blood shared her birth story today. She was 17 and was in labor for 3 days. They didn’t have pain meds/epidural in that day. Her son was 12 lbs. She said she almost died from it. She got divorced from her first husband because he wanted more kids and she refused. She had another son from her second marriage, but only after her OB promised he would deliver the baby C-section. She is divorced from her second husband and her younger son is living at home with her and his child and she is supporting them both right now. Needless to say, she could see the benefit of going into motherhood single. But, I digress….

After getting back from the lab, it was a choice between food or sleep. Sleep won. Family and friends timed it well, because I had no sooner gotten up and the phone started ringing off the hook. It was nice that this happened after I was awake since I no longer have a phone screener here to take messages when I am napping unless it is the Dr./Dr.’s office.

One of the calls was from Dr’s office. The good news is that his bili number went down. The bad news is that it only went down by 1. I was really disappointed with that. I have kept him almost non-stop on the phototherapy. I have been feeding him and changing his diaper with it on. The only time I have taken it off is when I walk the dogs or take him to the lab. I decided that maybe another nap was in order and climbed in bed. I could feel myself getting upset and teary eyed. I was giving myself positive self talk and telling myself that getting all worked up would accomplish nothing. It was only so effective.

I fed Max and was doing a poop poop diaper change. I had his legs pulled up and his butt up and open when …. projectile poop all of his blanket, all over me, all over my bed. It even made it to my dresser and the floor. I think you had to be here to see it to get the true picture, but maybe not. Now, maybe for some people this would put them over the edge and full into a melt down. Me, I laughed thinking THIS is motherhood. This is what I knowingly signed up for, the good, the bad, the ugly. Melt down averted. It still can make me laugh just thinking about it after trying to clean up the mess which involved several loads of laundry and remaking the bed between the feed and change routine.

It reminded me of when I was younger and had a bottle of champagne in the fridge that I had re-corked. I noticed that the cork was coming out a bit and squatted to push it back in. My touch caused the cork to explode out. I got a full spray of champagne right in the face the force of which caused me to come off my haunches and onto my butt. A spontaneous champagne shower. How many people can say that they have one of them? Yes, it was a mess, but I just laughed and laughed. Again, I guess maybe you just had to be there.

Anyway, maybe I have an extra ordinary odd sense of humor, but the projectile poop was just the thing to ground me. Hey, isn’t a sense of humor a requirement of parenting?