diaper changing, a traumatizing experience

I've thought about video-taping a diaper changing episode to show you exactly what I deal with every few hours on a daily basis, but I figured that putting my son on the internet sans clothes was a bad idea (even though it would make great blackmail material when Parker is a teenager). So instead of a video documentary, I will describe it to you.

This morning, for example, I fed Parker his breakfast. Approximately 4 minutes after eating, he is off in a corner playing. He abruptly stops digging at/banging the AC vent and stands up. You might think he was just standing there doing nothing (think whistling, looking-at-the-ceiling, no-one-is-pooping-here baby), but I know better. I knew he was pooping, so when he finished and went back to playing, I knew he needed changed...contrary to what he was trying to convince me of.

So I scoop Parker up to carry him to the changing table, and this is when the drama starts. "WAHHHHHH WAHHHHHH WHY ARE YOU TAKING ME AWAY FROM throwing all my books on the floor/ripping all the pages out of my books/popping all the lids off of my formula/getting into the cabinet with all the cleaning supplies/digging in the litter box........etc. etc. etc."

Then he usually stops crying momentarily while I am holding him, until he sees us closing in on the changing table. Then he starts freaking out again, since he knows the torture that I am about to give myself him. I lay him down and try to play with him. I sing to him and give him ANYTHING he wants to hold (including the fan/light remote, car keys, my ipod, my phone, a bottle...you name it, I've tried it)...but he is no longer fooled. He knows I am going to change him so he uses all his tiny muscles to flip over.

I flip him back over. He is screaming.

I get his diaper off. Pee diapers are not too bad. Poop is much worse, but if I know it's there I can have the wipes open and ready to go. The worst situation is when I have a ghost poop. A ghost poop occurs when you think you are only changing a pee diaper, but when you open it up you have poop instead, and you are completely caught off guard.

How on earth do ghost poops happen? I'm guessing a good diet of probiotics from yogurt...it makes the poop almost undetectable by smell. Either that, or I am so desensitized by bad smells at this point that my nose just doesn't work.

If I have a ghost poop, usually I don't have the wipes open and I certainly don't have a wipe pulled through the hole. These poops almost always happen when the wipes are near the bottom of the container and I'm desperately shoving my two longest fingers in the wipe hole opening trying to reach the bottom to grab a wipe.

You would think there was a million dollar bill at the bottom of that container then way I am sweating and trying to reach down there. 

While I am trying to reach the wipes at the bottom of the container, Parker is fighting the hell out of me...while the diaper is open. I am now using one hand to try to keep his grabby-hands away from his poop covered scrotum while simultaneously I am holding his feet up at his ears. He is still screaming bloody murder.

So I use the poopy diaper to try to wipe some of the crap off his butt so that maybe I'll only need 50 wipes instead of 75. I finally get a wipe out of the container, and start wiping and cleaning and trying to keep those damn little hands away from the poop.

Then here's the best part: Parker has somehow learned to soothe himself during these extremely traumatic experiences by squeezing his butt cheeks together and bouncing his butt up and down while frog-legging his legs. BOING BOING BOING. So I have one second between boings to wipe in his crack before he clenches up again.

Clench, boing/wipe. Clench, boing/wipe.

Does anyone know what I am talking about here, or is my son completely out of his mind??? 

At least he usually isn't screaming anymore. It just takes me at least 10 minutes to get him cleaned up.

Putting the new diaper on is also difficult because all Parker wants to do by this time is get off his back. He can't stand it (odd, coming from a baby who also HATED tummy time...).

I finally get the diaper on and his clothes put back together. I pick him up and he always acts like nothing happened.

When do kids start to cooperate with diaper changes?????