There’s poo on my thumb

She looks innocent, but what is lurking in her nappy?

Hannah used to tell me when she’d done a poo.  Ok, by tell, I mean she would cry and whinge.  Now, she doesn’t seem to care until it’s been there so long it starts to give her a rash and her bottom hurts.  That of course doesn’t happen often, as the smell usually tips me off.  Sometimes though, the smell is contained within her britches, not piercing the outside world, not alarming me (or anyone else) to the chaos that has happened inside her nappy.  So now, I check her nappy frequently, just in case.  I don’t want her to have a sore, red, raw, rashy bottom that makes her scream when I try to get the poo off.

After bible study today, I picked Hannah up from the creche.  She loves the creche.  Anyway, as a last minute thought, I decided to check her nappy on the off chance she’d done one of those smell-stays-in-her-nappy poos so she wouldn’t have to ride in the car with it all the way home.  My usual nappy checking method consists of me preventing her from running away with one hand, while pulling the nappy open at the top in the back, so I can peek in, with the other.  Sure, I could hold her up and sniff her bottom, but that makes me feel a little bit too much like a dog.  Not to mention sometimes there is smell (since she farts all the time), but no poo.

“How is your bottom Bubba?”  I should have asked her if she did a poo poo.  Sometimes she will tell me “poo poo” if she has.  Of course, she also tells me that she wants bubba for dinner  (“what do you want for dinner?” “BUBBA!”), so what she says can’t always be trusted.

My thumb went for the back of the nappy.  It was met by something squishy.  Something warm.  Something HORRIBLE!  I looked in, shocked to see a poo all the way up the back of her nappy, my thumb resting right in it.  To make things worse, she ate blueberries yesterday (just think about that for a minute).

“I just put my thumb in poo!”  I announced loudly.  Humph.  No one was listening.  They were all engaged in their own conversations, with loud children running around them, making it nearly impossible to hear me.

“There’s POO on my thumb!”  I was louder this time, but still to no avail.  I’m not quite sure what I expected them to do with the information.  Maybe I just wanted sympathy.

I frantically rumaged through my purse (one-handed of course), fending off the small bubba hands that were also trying to rummage through my purse at the same time.  Phew, I found the wipes.  I wiped my thumb clean.  Ick, it was under my THUMBNAIL!  That is so disgusting….  How do you possibly get all of the poo fragments out from under a long thumbnail without leaving any behind?  I tried not to think about it and kept wiping.

I took Hannah to the bathroom and changed her nappy.  Then, I washed my hands with a copious amount of soap and prayed that never, EVER, would that happen again.

The problem with swimming

Hannah: not your average baby

Hannah started swimming lessons last week (I would have posted about this last week, but I forgot to bring the camera, and no one likes a post without photos).  I knew she’d like them, she loves the bath, but I didn’t know that she’d LOVE them.  She had a smile plastered on her cute little pudgy face the entire time.  Some babies cried.  Not Hannah.  She giggled.  The instructor had us put our babies’ heads on our shoulders and walk backwards around the pool, simulating swimming for the little ones.

“Grab their legs and show them how to kick in the water” the instructor told us.  I didn’t have to.  Hannah decided kicking is what she does best, splashing me and anyone in my general vicinity while she was at it.  She struggled to free herself of me so she could swim on her own.  Cheeky monkey, you’re not ready for that yet!

In Washington, everything at the beach is grey.... In case you're wondering, this is me on my pony Snowman when I was about 14

I love swimming.  I always have.  Sure, I didn’t grow up near the beach, but somehow, I still love swimming.  To get to the ocean where I’m from involved a lengthy drive and camping.  Then when you got there, the water was so cold that you’d turn blue after swimming in it for a few minutes.  The sand was grey, the sky was grey, the water looked grey.  That’s Washington (State, NOT D.C.  There is a difference!).  But I didn’t care, I’d go swimming anyway.

I wore board shorts over my swimming suit when I took Hannah for her swimming lesson.  Not because I’m now a mom and have cellulite on my ass (although I have to admit, that is a factor).  Not because I have a very hungry butt that likes to devour my swimming suit at every opportunity (again, also a factor).  Not because they make bikini bottoms so small these days that they only seem to cover your bum-crack and nothing else.  Not because during pregnancy, the only place I got stretch marks was my butt.  Sure, these things were all factors, but I’d still don the bikini bottoms sans board shorts if it weren’t for the one problem I have with swimming:  I always forget to shave/wax/pluck/do something about my unfortunate bikini line.

I don’t want to be the one that’s running around on the beach or at the pool looking like I have a family of  big, black, angry spiders trying to escape from my nether regions.  Not only that, but when I do remember (or can be bothered) to shave first, I get those annoying little red bumps all over.  Which is worse, spiders coming out of your swimmers, or a million (ok, that’s an exaggeration) red bumps?  If I wax first (which takes much more effort and time.  Plus, where would I do it?  We live with Grandma now, so I can’t do it in the lounge room like I used to.  What if Grandma came in?  “Hey Grandma, oh yeah, that is my crotch hanging out, I’m just waxing.”  I could do it in my room, but what would I do whilst waxing?  There’s no working tv in there.  If you have to go through the discomfort (to put it lightly) of waxing, you need something to amuse yourself while you do it), then a couple of days later I get a million (ahem, exaggeration) ingrown hairs.  I suppose then I would look ok for the day of swimming (If I waxed the night before), but ingrowns (as well as the red bumps) are itchy.  I’d look good for a day, then I’d look like I have crabs.  Sometimes you just have to scratch.  Scratching makes it worse.  Then you have a million red lumps and/or ingrown hairs, long red scratch marks extending from your crotch, to halfway down your leg, inflammation, and everyone you are around at the time thinking that you must have crabs.  There’s always tweezing, that causes much less future problems, but it takes so long, and you know what?  I just can’t be bothered (and again, where would I do it?).

Bring on the boardies.  We’ll just pretend they’re to cover the cellulite.  Or the stretch marks.