Adventures in Baby____ing

This an e-mail I sent to Shannon on Friday morning. Now that her maternity leave is over, the baby and I spend some quality time together during work day mornings. We get ready for work and for day care together. Some days, not all goes according to plan.
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This happened when I was getting ready to take Michael to child care for the morning. He hadn't had a dirty diaper in several days...

He sat serenely. Leaning forward, pale skin contrasting against the blue Bumbo chair, he looked peaceful. But that was an illusion. Deep within, powerful forces were at work. Pressure was building. Geothermal currents and processes were reaching critical mass.

Outside, birds fell silent and dogs struggled to escape their yards. The Brushy Creek mountain lion screamed and cowered in a cedar tree. Something was coming, and nothing could stop it.

The first indication was subtle. Was that a smile? Why is he turning red? What is he concentrating on? Then came the sound; a baritone rumble like a tuba full of saliva. We had heard plenty of those in the last few days, but none had produced anything in the diaper. Then came another report; a boom like demolition of a water tower full of taffy. And then came another, like a hundred cannons firing slightly out of unison.

Silence rushed in suddenly, and Mikey slumped back in his baby chair, exhausted by the elemental forces he had unleashed. I instantly knew what had happened, and my heart filled with icy cold dread. How could this happen now? Just after Shannon left for work and just minutes before day care? All those peaceful days of clean diapers this week had come home to roost. Peaceful Krakatoa had exploded at precisely the wrong time.

I steeled my nerves and sipped my coffee for an energy boost. This was going to be a long morning. I peeled back the little baby shorts and got to work.

I wasn't prepared for the carnage that greeted me. Both legs had catastrophically breached. The flimsy elastic was like a straw hut facing a massive milk tsunami. He was covered from the waist down. Feet, legs, thighs, waist. Everything. I despaired. With only several hundred diaper wipes remaining, I feared the supply would run out.

After what seemed like an eternity, the job was done, the beast was slayed. The mountain of wipes and the DIAPER OMG went straight outside to the trash can. And the little harbinger of doom; the conduit of such destruction? He just smiled.