Fatherhood

My kid shat on me today.

He did it in excellent fashion.  Upon noticing that he was particularly high-strung that morning, I had just taken him out of his high chair to let him run it out.  This is best accomplished by chasing him through the house in no particular direction whatsoever.  Being just under a year and a half old (16 months, for all the anal-retentive moms out there), his sense of direction is best determined by his ability to mimic the grace of a drunken ostrich.  He wobbled his way through our living room, the dining room and back as I attempted a pathetic version of Hide-n-Seek with him from behind one of his tiny chairs.  I may as well have hid in front of a wall, the good it did me there.

From the other side of the room, I heard the familiar 'Uh-oh!" from him that my wife and I find so damn cute.  In most cases, he applies this phrase to his exploits about as often as I use a comma, which somehow makes it even more adorable.  (i.e. Kid drops his cup of cheerios: "Uh-oh!," Kid falls flat on his face: "Uh-oh!," Kid shits his pants...you get the idea).  Then I see him.  He's rounding the corner, and coming at me full steam ahead, arms outstretched and smiling at me with that half-tooth, wide open grin. You know the one; the same grin hitch-hikers usually flash their victims moments before they drop the punch-line.  Pray that you never see it.   It will haunt your dreams.

His momentum drove him headfirst into my arms, laughing hysterically.  It was that quintessential moment shared between a father and son that Harry Chapin could've only dreamt about. He was pure happiness, and in my best Monster-voice I warned him,
 
    "Here come the TICKLES!!," and proceeded to tickle the living daylights out of him...a move that would end up being my downfall.

He threw his head back in hysterics, his mouth open at the ceiling in laughter. He wiggled through my arms and we rolled onto the carpet as I searched for the sweet spots between his ribs.  He couldn't resist the tickles. I would tickle this kid into a coma if I could.  ...And that's when I saw it.  The brown smear across our new white rug.  The hairs stood up straight on the back of my neck.  And then...and then, I got hit with the smell.  ...And it was pungent.

I tickled the shit out of him.  Literally. It was everywhere. It was on my arms. It was on my legs. It was on his legs. It had exploded violently out of his diaper and smashed its way into the fibers of our rug. We were both completely covered in shit.  And not just us.  The dining room.  The living room.  His high chair.  I never noticed it, but in the span of 30 seconds, this little Fecal-demon had successfully covered 50% of our house, my person and his clothes in diarrhetic stool.  I felt like that little Indian boy in Slumdog Millionaire, only I didn't get the autograph. ..I just got covered in baby-poo.  Which is about as awesome as, well, getting covered in baby-poo.

Maybe one day his subconscious will reveal the memory of me hosing him off in the shower while he screams bloody murder.  More likely, one day I will be harassing him about this in front of his would-be girlfriend.  Even more likely, a day will come when he may be looking after me in a nursing home, feeding me ground up hotdog through a straw and helping a nurse change my bedpan.  And on that day...I'll bend my old ass over and shit on him. It's only fair.