08/04/2006
Pickle Icky 3
YEAH !!!!!
It’s my fiftieth post – Yeah!!!!
And it’s a loo loo.
On vacation The Pickle was submerged in Sunscreen, Surf, and Swimming Pool. For those of you who were not aware: infant girls do, in fact, have vaginas - and they are apparently not yet as completely Ph balanced as a pool.
Several days after our return I noticed a certain redness and swelling in her nether-regions if you will. Upon closer inspection I discerned that there was what I determined to either be a caked on residual collection of Butt-Paste (truly mis-named at this moment) or the white trade-mark trail of my daughter’s first yeast infection.
Yeah!!!
The on-call nurse recommended a wipe-out of the afore mentioned ‘Hoo-Ha’ with a moist wash cloth and the suspension of all wet-wipe and butt-paste usage. In two days the redness and swelling had disappeared.
Last night The Pickle had a fairly rough night of . . . not sleeping. It was obvious that she was uncomfortable. I thought it was the Icelandic conditions that my wife had created with an over-ambitious air-conditioning attack on our recent heat wave, but low and behold that was not the cause.
She finally went to sleep at about 8:30 am and slept until 12:30ish. I was fairly certain that by then she had made a run at her diaper, and I went for the change as soon as she awoke.
Have you ever seen something that makes you uncontrollably utter the words, ". . oh my god. . . "?
The diaper was filled with a unique green ooze that had apparently come from my daughter’s cooter. My suspicion was confirmed when I went to lift her legs over her head to wipe her off . . . it was like popping a zit.
Picture the biggest white-head you’ve ever had - not a gusher, a slow oozer. Yellow and pasty.
Not to mention we were all, wife in tow, soon at the pediatrician’s office.
They were kind enough to swab the diaper, which I brought with me – perhaps some day to end up in a medical museum of some grotesque nature.
But the bad news was that they needed to catheterize the poor little girl to get a clean sample of her urine to rule out the possibility of a urinary tract infection as the cause of her symptoms.
No Good.
I had to hold her down as the nurse rammed a plastic tube up into her bladder. This has not been my favorite day of parenthood.
The good news is that it is most likely an external issue caused by exposure to chlorine, salt water, and sunscreen – we have our ointment, instructions and humility in tact as we face the horror that has become my daughter’s privates.
Yeah!!!
Pickle’s Papa
09:04 Posted in Pickle Icky | Permalink | Comments (7) | Email this
07/14/2006
Carrots Anyone?
Recently I was hanging out with Mya's Mommy, Mya, and Ryan. During the visit I had such a horrific poop experience that I must make an immediate addition to my online catalogue of vileness.
The Pickle was in Mya's swing when she expressed her desire to no longer be in the swing - I picked her up.
What happened next was bad.
Apparently the poop (because yes, there was poop) had found a way to completely bypass both diaper and onesy, but stick to her leg - just long enough for me to pick her up and cradle her butt. At which point - I ended up with a handful of shit. Her first carrot shit - in my hand.
Now this is primarily my fault. To quote Ryan, "I was worried when I saw your daughter in those hot pants."
See, several months ago I begged to have a couple of nice onesies that actually fit her at the time. For some reason everyone gave us clothes for 6 month olds with the idea that she would soon outgrow anything for either 0-3 or 3-6 M. Well, the problem with that theory is that I spent the first two months of her life calming her crying fit as I attempted to put one leg back into the pajama leg it was supposed to be in - instead of the one where both legs had ended up.
To alleviate this, I begged Mya's Mommy and my mom one day when we were group shopping at The Disney Store for some cute onesies for 0-3 M. To show my appreciation and the value of these outfits - I have continued to dress her in them well past the reasonable point where they actually fit.
Thus the 'hot pant' reference. Well, as she sat in the swing - she had apparently maneuvered her anus in such a fashion to completely circumvent the restraint any diaper or 'hot pant' would put on her impending poopage.
This is when she made launch.
What confuses me is how the poop could stick only momentary to her leg. Because the instant I touched her it immediately released into my open palm. All of it. I had a handful. My screams of horror were heard in the kitchen where the grown-ups were, and Ryan was sent to help - despite his silent protestations.
He held The Pickle, in the classic Nicolas Cage, Raising Arizona, arms out, head turned away fashion whilst I got myself into a capacity to be able to clean up the pickle (i.e. scraped the poop off my hand).
I then had to instruct Ryan as to which way to turn the baby so that I could wet wipe her down to the point where we could remove her hot pants. The reason I had to give directions is that Ryan refused to look anywhere near The Pickle or her orange stained legs.
This was problematic.
When we finally got her onto the changing pad and freed her of her Daisy Dukes - There was not an ounce of poop in her Diady.
And this, Ladies and Gentlemen just goes to show - If you dress your daughter like a whore . . . you're gonna end up with a handful of shit in public.
Pickle's Papa
09:03 Posted in Pickle Icky | Permalink | Comments (5) | Email this
07/13/2006
Is That Peanut Butter?
It is amazing the things that we, as civilized creatures, will do (and touch) in order to perform our parental duties of ‘warm, safe, and dry.’
The reason I point this out is that we fulfill these obligations - being well aware that our little angels will eventually be teenagers, and that they will swear that they hate us - and wish that they had never been born. We all know that this will happen. We did it ourselves, and have heard the warnings of all parents that have trudged onward on the path before.
We, in this first generation of blogging parents, have a unique opportunity to completely catalogue and submerge our children in the overwhelming amount of information and proof that we did in fact do our best, and despite how screwed up our kids may end up being – maybe it wasn’t our fault.
With that being said, I would now like to record several things that have happened between my daughter and I which I hope to utilize later on in her life when she is just way too cool to be seen in public with her parents, or just too grown up to listen to what we have to say.
My father was a genius at this, and I have perhaps the best ever being put in your place story that has ever been told.
When I was a junior in college I was home visiting and was getting ready to go out clubbing with some friends from high school. I hung out in a fairly intense electro-goth circle of friends, which meant that there was more leather and hair resembling palm trees meandering about the kitchen as we were headed out the door than one could readily imagine.
So we were headed out the door, me and all my punk rock friends. Now I swear it just happened to strike me at that moment how short my father is (5’5”), and it was really the first time I noticed that I was taller than him.
I said, “wow dad, you’re getting pretty short.” And then in front of all of my friends he looks at me and says, “yeah, you’re gettin’ pretty big for comin’ out the end of my dick. . . ”
That folks, is what you call a show-stopper.
I don’t think I have ever fully recovered from that moment.
The key is, no matter how much you grow up in life there are certain unquestionable trump cards every parent has, and we as bloggers have the ultimate opportunity to not let those slide.
For me, aside from some diapers that have made me question whether my daughter is digesting food or just holding it for some strange fermentation process, I have one moment which will always illuminate just how far you’ll go to take care of your child.
The first week The Pickle was alive The Wife was bedridden, and it was my job to facilitate the care of baby and mom (shuttling baby to and from mom and food to and from mom)– as well as changing all diapers.
The first day or so, as all parents will attest wasn’t so bad. The poop was a sticky tar-like substance that was pretty easy to manage. The weird thing that happened was that the nurse said that there would also be a slime-like substance that was in her vagina that needed to work its way out before she could really urinate.
So this was my first parental job. When I went to wipe my daughter on the second day of her life I discovered a vile substance that can only be compared to the slime from ‘You Cant Do That On Television” or what you’d get in the little plastic eggs at the grocery store. What really made it bad was that it seemed to be spot-welded to her skin, and the more I collected the more started to appear until I am bear handedly pulling slime out of my daughter like a booger on a rubber band. When you get a booger like that you expect there to be a red tip on it from the spot it was attached to your lung, but I was terrified that if I saw a red tip it would be the start of her first period.
‘This is fatherhood’ was my first realization. I was sleep deprived, and traumatized from the worst labor ever.
This is what I plan to bring up when she tells me I never put her needs ahead of mine – because folks, I really needed to not do that.
Yet someday - she will not believe I have her best interests in mind when I tell her she cant ride on a motorcycle, or shoot heroin into her eye, or god forbid join the cheerleading squad. I need to make sure that I have enough guilt creating fodder to ensure that she will never . . . Wait a second this is starting to sound all too familiar.
Maybe that’s not the way to prove that I love her. Maybe its just by loving her despite how much of a psychotic teenager she becomes.
Not that I’m going to give up keeping track of all of the fowl shit that I have to do – but maybe I’ll just use it to show her how responsible you have to be, to be a parent . . . and that will keep her off motorcycles.
Pickle’s Papa
13:21 Posted in Pickle Icky | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this