Yet another post about Liam’s bowels

I promise, one day soon, I’ll stop saying anything about his poop. But please bear with me…

We had to go to the passport office today to get Liam hooked up with a passport, so that he can come with us when we go visit my sister in a couple of weeks (Digression: I can imagine us getting to the U.S. Border with him sans passport, and encountering some surly border guard. Guard asks for Liam’s passport. We show him his birth certificate. He asks us if Liam has a driver’s license (valid for entering the states in conjunction with a birth certificate, of course). We laugh, and say of course not. He gets angry, and sends Liam to immigration for interrogation, meanwhile letting us through. We, of course, get on the plane, while Liam spends christmas at the border. Hey! free baby sitting! ;).

So, we want to get there early-ish. Which means that we’re terribly rushed at home, what with getting ourselves up, getting Liam up, giving him breakfast, etc. And we forget Liam’s Astro-Boy diaper bag. Leah will argue that I forgot it, seeing as I offered to take the stroller down. But I choose not to lay blame in this incident, and will simply move on. So, we leave the house, sans Diaper bag. It must be noted that Liam was the recipient of a suppository this morning, as it had been a couple of days since he pooped, and that’s the recommended course of action for us at the moment, to help keep him regular.

We get to the passport office, and it’s a zoo. There’s a huge line to get to the reception. Of course, all that reception does is give you a number, at which point your Official Waiting Time begins. The 45 minutes to get to the reception doesn’t actually count as waiting in this office. I’m not sure what to call it then. Perhaps, Queueing, as you’re standing in line, not sitting wating for your number to be called. So we’re queueing, and Liam poops. This is quite apparent to us parents, as he suddenly grunts, turns bright red for about a minute, then relaxes. Leah, who’s already imagining all sorts of worse-case scenarios of them not letting us get his passport, is, shall we say, slowly freaking out.

We get through reception, at which point it becomes apparent that I’m not at all needed for this excursion, and thus should hurry myself off to work. Leah’s not looking forward to waiting alone with Liam, who also, it should be noted, is now missing his morning nap, which occurs 1.5 hours after he wakes up. He’s, at this point, been awak 2, with no end in sight.

I offer, gallantly I feel, to go and at least remove the poop from Liam’s diaper, wipe down the diaper and then put it back on him, so he’s not sitting in his own poop for the next 2 hours. So I take him downstairs to the food court, and into the men’s washroom. There’s a changing station, but the straps to hold him in are broken, and it’s really gross looking. “No problem!” I think, “I’ll just lay down some paper-” there’s no paper towels in the paper-towl dispenser. I then check the stalls. There’s no toilet paper. In either stall. I curse, button Liam back up, and head out. I first spend a couple of minutes hanging outside the women’s washroom, in case some nice woman would go in and get paper towel or toilet paper for me. Not a single woman appears in the 2 minutes I wait, so I continue on to the food court. For perhaps obvious reasons, the first 5 napkin dispensers I spy are all empty. I finally find one with some napkins, and there’s all of 7 napkins in there. Cursing every worker under my breath, I head back to the men’s washroom. Both stalls are now full, the washroom echoing very loudly with the sounds of old men doing their business. A particularly loud far scares Liam, who’s already unnerved by all my running around and his lack of sleep, and he starts screaming. The kind of high-pitched, braying scream that he reserves for when he’s really had it. And with that as my soundtrack, I set upon de-pooping him.

Now having the opportunity to examine him, it appears that he has let loose the largest, softest poop of his young life. The diaper is a huge mess. There’s poop all over his bum. This is quite the chore. But I gamely ration my 7 napkins, and set about removing the poop, wiping his bum, then, best as I can, wipe off the diaper for him. With the very last corner of the very last napkin, I accomplish this task. I now really want to wash my hands. But I can’t leave Liam on the change table because he could roll off. And once I wash my hands, I’ll have no way of drying them. So I prop him up in the corner of the sink-counter, stuff my sweater against one side of him so he won’t fall over and onto the floor, and wash my hands. I dry my hands by flinging them at the wall, then wiping them on my shirt. Liam, fortunately, calms down around now. So I put my sweater back on, pick him up, and head back upstairs, leaving right as I hear a guy in stall one call out “Hey – do you have any spare toilet paper over there?”