Diaper changing as blood sport

[sanpaku_backup]

So it has been established now, scientifically, how long the maximum train trip should be with a three-and-a-half-month-old: about four hours. This was verified on the way down and on the way back. Four hours is about the longest that the "playing," "sleeping," and "nursing" phases can be stretched out before entering the "I'm going to scream because I want my crib and I'm bored" phase begins.

Unfortunately, the trip was seven hours each way. Actually I think the screaming phase was not more than a few minutes each time. Probably more nerve-racking for us than for the people around us. (Yowza, was the train full today. People sitting in the aisles the length of the trip north of Philadelphia.)

The other reason not to stretch the trip past four hours is...


Within a few hours the baby will probably start to smell a little and need to be changed. Imagine your surprise (if that's the right word) to discover that on the whole damn train, not one bathroom, not one, has those little fold-down changing platforms, such as are standard in just about every truck stop bathroom these days.

So the routine goes like this:

• Determine that, in fact, the baby is beshitten. Wait a while to decide whether you will be hauled away by a social worker for the crime of letting her stew in her own juices. (Not that she minds, of course.) Fortunately, baby poop does not smell that bad. Still, at some point you feel bad about it.
  
• Lurch your way down the aisle holding the baby and the diaper bag while the train passes around a shoreline curve at 80 miles an hour.
  
• Get in to the bathroom and close the door, whereupon the baby vomits up all five ounces of her lunch on your shirt, your shoes, her outfit, and the floor of the bathroom.
  
• With one hand holding the baby, use the other to fold down the little board next to the toilet seat that obese people use to slide on to the toilet. This is about 12 inches wide. The baby is about 12 inches wide. Not much room for error here.
  
• Again, with one hand, do the following tasks: fumble in the diaper bag for folded-up plastic surface thingee; open velcro straps; unfold surface; place it on little board; fumble in bag again for cloth diaper to place on it; place baby on diaper.
  
• Baby is width of the board, so one hand will need to be placed on her to keep her from possibly sliding off while train is going 80 mph around aforementioned curves.
  
• Contemplate baby vomit on floor; decide whether or not you will be breaking the social compact by leaving bathroom floor coated in baby vomit; reluctantly begin mopping floor with wads of paper towels and then stuffing them in already overstuffed bathroom garbage can, all with one hand on the baby.
  
• Have I mentioned that this entire time the baby is screaming at the top of her lungs inside an 8' x 8' x 4' metal-lined bathroom?
  
• Now for the real fun. Again, with one hand, fumble in bag past thousands of brushes and ointments and clothing to find new diaper; jam into shirt pocket. Fumble in bag to find small container with inadequate supply of diaper wipes; open.
  
• Unfasten and remove insanely complicated baby clothing; remove diaper; jam into even more overstuffed bathroom trash can, thinking regretfully of eventual bathroom custodian's discovery.
  
• Use one hand to retrieve and use last remaining wipes; jam into trash can with similar emotional feeling as before.
  
• Place new diaper on the infant; struggle and curse for five minutes while attempting to refasten 1,241 snaps on baby clothing.
  
• Attempt to locate remaining artifacts and collect them into diaper bag.
  
• Wad up more paper towels and use to clean baby vomit off of your shirt and shoes; more stuffing into the garbage can.
  
• Lurch forward to seat, whereupon your spouse will say, "Can't you take her for another hour? I've been holding her for four hours!" Stifle feelings of frustration caused by reflecting that baby was asleep for all four of those hours.
  

Ah, yes, the joys. And there were so many babies on the train today. We cannot have been the first people in the history of the world to face this challenge. How come they don't have those changing tables?

Anyway, as miserable as it was at times, though, a free trip is a free trip, and there's no more beautiful way to go than the train. As long as you're looking out the window, that is.

A less scatological post to follow, after Oz, friends-only. Nyah.

Comments

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

That sounds entirely too unhygenic. My former manager used to say that I would spontaneously combust if I had kids on account of the dirt. I'm one of those people who comes out of the restroom holding my hands up, opening the door with a towel, looking scrubbed and ready for surgery.

ew .

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

So far it's actually pretty mild. Remember, though, I have at times been cleaning up for four cats and a dog. There's not a lot of gross stuff I haven't seen already. On that scale, the baby is much easier to deal with than scooping a litter box every other day.

Yes, to a large extent the past few months have revolved around baby excrement. (My mother told me she threw up the first time she changed my brother.) But it doesn't smell bad, really. The wipes are also usually useful to keep it off of yourself. You get past being disgusted pretty quickly. (The puke is just milk, so it's not that bad either.) When they get older I think it is harder to deal with, both because of what they produce and what they get themselves into. But I am trying not to think about that.

As far as it being unhygienic in general, well, you use public bathrooms, right? So what are you gonna do. Believe me, I hosed myself down pretty well when I got home.

Re:

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

There was this really funny fake ad in The Onion a couple of years ago-- "Want boxes of shit in your house? Get a cat!"

Yeah, poop. crazy stuff.

I don't use public restrooms; I'm a robot.