Note from PAP: Please forgive my toilet language but there are only so many synonyms for poop…
My son, Luke, gets a diaper rash when he lets his poop sit in his pull-up for too long. My wife or I will notice the smell and ask Luke if he’s dirty. He responds quickly, “No I okay.” Then runs off and torments his sisters. We’ll check Gabe’s diaper and not finding the offending odorous source will chalk it up to gas, or secretly suspect the other of a SBD.
Later when Luke tackles us and puts his butt in our face or is up wind of our position we discover his lie. As a whipped… I mean, good husband I have changed my share of diapers. So I sit down with Luke and take off the biohazard. Sure enough the acids in the poop have started to eat at his butt flesh. Hence a classic diaper rash.
Now there are other means of diaper rash such as excema, or fungus, but (and there are many butts) in our house the most common form is the “sitting in poop too long” variety.
As I throw the spoilt diaper at the child slowest to react and flee, I yell “honey, could you throw this away for me.” Now I take a closer look at my son’s red butt and look into his teary eyes “No! Wipe! No Wipe!” I disobey and take out the wipe and start to remove the folliclly challenged dingle-berries (and yes I used this term correctly for once). He fights me and I have to wipe harder lest he spin about and escape while leaving a trail across my forearm, slacks and carpet (not that we’d notice the last stain).
After cleaning him off I apply a glob of diaper or anti-fungal cream I put on another pull up and warn him earnestly, “When you go poopy you need to tell daddy so I can clean it up so you don’t get any more rashes. Or better yet go in the toilet.”
Okay, that’s not what I say exactly. I misspelled one word in the previous paragraph, it should read “mommy.”
Luke nods, “Yes daddy!” and then returns to his job of joyfully tormenting Abby.
On a completely unrelated note (but soon to be snapped together):
Have you ever met anyone whose character just smelled? They talk to you and you can’t help but be repulsed by their negativity, attitude, ungratefulness, anger, etc… You name it, they just seem to be fermenting in shit.
What do you do? I’ll ask them nicely, “are you okay.” They’ll say “I’m okay” and then go share their crap with someone else. Later it becomes clear that they are full of shit and that this stuff is hurting their relationships, hurting you and especially hurting themselves. So what do you do? Do you come back and help them change or do you walk off and hope someone else will help them clean up?
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” King Solomon wrote in the book of Proverbs. Only a loving parent will change some of the waste that comes out of a toddler, while the toddler is screaming “I hate you!” and squirming to get away.
Only a true friend will confront someone who is sitting in shit and try to clean them up so they can heal. I did this recently with a friend of mine, and was verbally assaulted, accused, and criticized. It even cost me a great business opportunity. My crime was that I was honest with them and was trying to help them.
Looking at this friend’s life I don’t know of many people like myself that care about them and want to help (this person is similar to me in many ways). Most people are scared of this person’s rage (for good reason) and don’t want to hurt him/her so they avoid any confrontation. The end result is a little tyrant whose anger, bitterness and loneliness are all unnecessary. They can be such an intelligent, generous, thoughtful and creative person if people could get close to them, but the smell keeps people at a distance.
The temptation is to walk away and say that at least I tried. The problem is that the longer we allow our friends to sit in the “fruits of the crap” the longer and more difficult the journey back to a sanitary and sane state. True there are other caustic causes in people’s lives that we can’t fix, but we can help with the all too common “sitting in poop too long” variety.
Now there is a place for grace and gentleness when correcting a friend. You can wipe gently and use wet wash-cloths instead of bristle pads. You can also apply a generous layer of cream to the post operative area. But no matter how you do it, it its going to be uncomfortable and painful for the person you are trying to help and yourself.
The good news is that when its over your friend will be grateful (eventually) and may even go in the toilet the next time.
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