Like Father Like Daughter: a poop story

Some stories from your childhood are repeated in family and party circles over and over. My mom likes to tell how she found me chewing on a razor blade when I was about 2 or 3. My brother Garry drank turpentine on my Aunt and Uncle's wedding day. My oldest brother Doug would only eat mayonnaise sandwiches. Then there is the colorful story about Chris and his twin Tia and the nap time poo fight that resulted in creative poo art on the walls, crib and, of course, each other. That story comes up often. It is ingrained in the memory of my father in law for all time I imagine. Over 40 years later and he can still smell and visualize the famous poo fight. Thankfully Liliana would never do anything like that. She is too sweet and concerned about her cleanliness to ever play in her own poo- or so I thought until last night.

Lately her diaper pail has been smelling pretty bad even after cleaning so I began moving it out of her room at night. I felt bad that she has to sleep in the subtle smell of poo all night long. Last night I creaked open her door to do my routine admiration, covering up and gently kissing good night when I noticed it still smelled like poo in her room. I assumed she may have pooed her diaper because she has been sick lately with diarrhea and is going a lot. As I moved closer to the crib I saw her bare bottom glowing in the moonlight. Awww, cute she took her diaper off again. Something she has been doing off and on for the last few weeks. Then, not so cute I saw the pile of poo behind her that she had contorted her body to be away from before she fell asleep. Baby doll's leg was in the poo so I gently removed her and washed off her plastic parts. I decided this was a job too big for me to handle alone and calmly went downstairs to inform Chris of the situation. We tip toed back up the stairs, not sure why we were afraid to wake her when clearly this was going to have to happen soon. As I guided Chris to the mess, I noticed it was a much greater problem. There were other spots of poo surrounding her. Wally had poo on him too. We finally woke her and as she sat up in a pie eyed gaze it became clear that she had enjoyed a solo poo fest. It was in her hair, on her face and completely covering her hands. I had already started running the bath and picked her up but held her at a distance the same way I would before plunking a skunk sprayed cat into a tub. I expected the same result too but she was remarkably calm and still half asleep. I struggled to pull her shirt over her head and after I freed her I scrubbed her entire body for almost 15 minutes to get the dried poo off. Chris in the meantime was a star getting everything in the wash and cleaning the mattress. 1 hour later we were ready to get our squeaky clean babe back into bed where she fell asleep promptly but not before expanding her vocabulary by 1 word: poo-poo.