The Post I Thought I'd Never Write

I've heard friends say things like, "I never thought I'd drive a minivan," or "I never thought I would view 9 PM as late."  It's always followed up by, "And then I had kids."  Well, this is a post that I never ever thought I would write.

Last night the power went off at 9:30 PM due to a pretty spectacular wind storm.  The sound of the transformers exploding sounded a bit like a war zone.  I bundled up Aurelia in an extra swaddle, put some wool blankets on the bed, and snuggled in for a cold, dark night.  I was so thankful that one of the things Joey stressed before he left was that the emergency flashlight was in the drawer right beside the bed.  And wonder of wonders, my little girl slept for 3 1/2 hours straight.  But along with the 2:00 AM nursing came a diaper change. . . in the dark.  I had prepared for this before going to bed by laying out a diaper and an extra sleeper in case a blow out happened.  Always be prepared, right?  I set the flashlight on the changing table and got to work.  Now, one of the things my husband also should have done before he left was make sure the batteries in the flashlight were charged.  Aurelia was all cleaned up and I was getting ready to put her new diaper on when she made a grimicing face I'm all too familiar with followed by a little grunt.  And then the flashlight went out.  From the noise I heard in the darkness, I new this was a good one, this was the blowout I had prepared for.  So there I stood in the pitch black with a naked baby on the changing table, no light source in arms reach.  I remembered that there was a tea light on my bedstand for the air freshener I light when I change out the diaper pail.  I fumbled around for a match, finally got the candle lit, and realized that the tea light wasn't going to cut it.  Then I remembered that our unity candle from our wedding was on the pie safe in the kitchen.  I strapped Aurelia down to the pad (and thought to myself, "THAT'S why these things have straps") and used the tea light to light my way into the living room.  Reflected in the warm glow of our wedding memento, I found my daughter and the auxiliary sleeper covered in poo.  Miraculousy she didn't get any on the sleeper she was wearing or the changing pad.  5 wipes later, I picked my clean baby up off the changing pad, turned around, knocked over the flashlight which turned back on as it hit the floor. 

And that's it.  I'd always promised myself I wouldn't post about poop.  But I know that a certain subset of Aurelia's fanbase would be unforgiving if I didn't post stories like these (you know who you are Loya and Nong).  And sometimes you just have to laugh at the situations parenting puts you in.  While most people will remember the windstorm of Fall 2010, to me it was a real sh*tstorm (forgive the language).