Well...now that I feel I've at least covered some of the basics of how the Felax 5 came to be, I thought it would be fun to tell some stories about some of the more interesting/funny/disturbing things that have happened over the years. These stories will be much shorter than the blogs I've posted before, but hopefully they can make you laugh a little. I'll warn you about this one...it's gross as hell...so if you've got this image of all of these blog posts as being heart-warming or emotional...you may want to stop right here.
I always tell people that the best form of birth control would be to have teenage kids come and live the life of a parent...especially in our house. Those of you with young kids or even older kids are nodding your head right now and saying, "That's for DAMN sure!" Teenage pregnancies seem to be becoming more and more of a trend, but here is the problem. Number one, teenagers ASSUME their babies will be healthy and that there will be no problems at all. They don't have the foresight to see potential problems that may come their way. Any time I talk to young kids about the dangers of having kids so young, I ask them a simple question as it relates to our family: "What if you have a kid that has Cystic Fibrosis? What about Cerebal Palsy? Or any other life changing disease or condition for that matter?" Holly and I can handle it because I have a job with good benefits and Holly can stay home with them...but what if you're in high school and this happens?
Secondly, there seem to be many teenage girls that "just want somebody to love". Yeah yeah yeah...I've heard it all before. "Babies are sooooo cuuuuuttteee!....OHMYGOSH, he/she is adorable!!....I WANT ONE!" They only see the cute side of babies, when their parents have them all dressed up in little adorable outfits and are parading them around for the world to see. They only see them when they are sleeping comfortably or giggling for mommy and daddy. What they DON'T see is the "other" side. Yeah...all the parents are nodding again...you know what I mean...the "other" side of having kids. And I'm not just talking about the sleepless nights and crying for mommy either. I'm talking about the drooling, burping, barfing, shitting, and pissing side of the babies. Yes, it may sound vulgar, but it's just true. If you've ever had kids, you know that they have a distinct ability to KNOW when they are getting changed, because they wait until that precise moment to piss all over you. Furthermore, they always seem to do it that ONE TIME that you think it's safe to do it on the bed instead of the changing table.
My first story of the disgusting side of kids is one I like to call...gravy legs. We bought Nolan one of those cute little "Exersaucer" things that all kids seem to have nowadays. For those of you that don't know what they are, it's pretty much what it sounds like. There is a plastic saucer that is face up on the ground, and it has three or four posts on the outsides of it that hold a little seat for the baby to play in. The seat pivots 360 degrees and there are toys all around it that keep the little boogers busy for at least a little while. Well, we had one of these exersaucers in our basement for Nolan, and Kennedy was downstairs with him. After a little while, we hear Kennedy yelling, "MOM! DAD! I THINK NOLAN POOPED. IT SMELLS REALLY BAD." Well, those of you that are parents also know that sometimes the worst thing you can do is immediately change a poop diaper because there is probably a good chance he or she is not done filling it. On this particular day, waiting that extra five minutes was a huge mistake.
Holly and I were pre-occupied with something else at the time, and a few minutes later, we hear Kennedy yell again, "MOM, DAD, I'M PRETTY SURE HE POOPED FOR SURE...IT SMELLS REALLY BAD!" So at this time, I thought I'd better go and take care of it. I walked down into the basement and immediately smelled what the Nolan had been cooking. He was pounding his feet and having a good old time, acting as though everything was normal. I casually walked over to him and grabbed him under the arms to lift him out of the seat, but as soon as I lifted him about 8 inches up, I knew something was terribly wrong. I could see some of the "brown business" seeping out of the diaper, so I set him back down and figured I'd better call for backup. Just as I started yelling for Holly to come help out, I noticed a strange sound as Nolan started pounding his feet into the bottom of the saucer. Yeah...it was kind of a "mushing" sound. I craned my neck down to see what was going on and that's the first time I've ever seen the phenomenon that I now refer to as "gravy legs". When I grabbed Nolan to pick him out of the saucer, I didn't get him far enough out to see how bad this mess really was...and it was bad. Nearly everything that his little body could let loose at one time was now all over his legs and about an inch deep in the bottom of the saucer. "HOLLY, YOU'D BETTER HURRY!!!"
Holly came into the basement and she was immediately astonished. Here is where anyone WITHOUT kids would probably get sick and puke...but those WITH kids know the feeling all to well. We had never seen that much crap in our lives, and Holly grew up on a farm. At first, we didn't know what the hell to do...where do you even start. Well...drastic times call for drastic measures, so we took action. I immediately picked Nolan up and held him at an arms length until I was confident that he wasn't dripping all over the place. Holly grabbed the exersaucer and we both headed upstairs. At the top of the stairs, I hooked a left toward the bathtub and Holly hooked a right toward the door to outside. I got Nolan into the bath, fully clothed, and just started hosing him down like someone that had been exposed to radiation (at this point, being exposed to radiation seemed like a pretty good alternative). Holly took the saucer out into the driveway, turned on the hose, and just went to work. At this point, I probably should apologize to any of our neighbors that may have seen that thing. It was simply disgusting. We got everything cleaned up, disinfected, deodorized, and dried off...but unfortunately nothing can remove the image of Nolan's gravy legs from our minds.
The second incident pretty much speaks for itself...and needless to say it deals with the same topic as the prior one. So, in short, if you are disgusted or you don't like reading about horrible stories of child rearing...just click on that little X up in the upper right hand corner of your screen.
One of the interesting things about Nolan's Cerebal Palsy is that he is VERY sensitive to the touch, especially on places like his hands or feet. I used to always put his hands on my face a day after shaving and it made him giggle and squirm in the cutest way. It seemed like every part of his body was very sensitive to things like that, so we liked to activate those sensors as much as possible. One way that I used to do this on his legs was something I did while changing his diaper. As he would lay on the bed for me to change him, I would grab the bottom of his pajamas or pants and start to count slowly to three. He would start giggling immediately because he knew what was coming. Instead of pulling them off slowly to change him, I would count to three and yank his pants upward and forward really quickly and they would come flying off. The feeling of the pants on his legs would make him laugh hysterically, and it made my day to see him giggle...so why not.
Well, one day in particular, this little trick backfired in a miserable way. Nolan had obviously brewed up something special based on the stench that was coming from him. At this point, common sense should have taken over and I should have been a little more careful with this one, but for some reason, I disregarded common sense at this time. I laid him on the bed and grabbed the cuffs of his pants down by his ankles and started counting. ONE! Nolan giggled. TWO! Nolan giggled even more. Aaaaannnddd....THREE! I yanked on the pants and Nolan laughed hysterically. However, what I didn't count on was the fact that his diaper wasn't particularly effective at this point, and I got a little more than I bargained for...OK, I got WAY more than I bargained for.
It turned out that Nolan's pants were FILLED, and when I yanked his pants off, it created a bit of a "whiplash" effect, and everything that was inside his pants went for a little ride. If you don't know what I mean, imagine taking a paintbrush and dipping it in a can of paint. Now take the brush, hold it out in front of you, and quickly yank it upward and toward you as though you were raising your hand to answer a question in school. What's going to happen to the paint? Yeah, it's going to go ALL OVER the place...and that is what happened to the crazy disgustingness that had leaked into Nolans pants.
It was horrible. It was beyond horrible. I spent the next 20 minutes or so trying to cover my tracks. It was all over the sheets, the walls, and the floor. It was everywhere...and when I finally convinced Holly (who was in the house at the time) that I was done with the cleanup, she came into the bedroom to inspect. It all looked ok until she looked up. Yeah, that's right...until she looked up. On the ceiling, I somehow missed a trail of poo that had flung up onto our WHITE drywall. It was in a near perfect straight line and there was a lot of it...which made the cleanup even more intense and laborious. We've had to clean pants, towels, bed sheets, and even an exersaucer after messes by the kids, but this was a first. It was as though a shit sprinkler had gone off all over our bedroom. Chalk this one up to a lesson learned!
I'm sorry for the graphic nature of this post, but it's just one of the added joys of being a parent. There is no love like the love you feel for your own child, but we all know there are moments when you can't help but wonder..."What the hell was I thinking?" And these were two of them:)
Until next time....
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