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“Tubby. We’re going to have a rub-a-dub-dub. What do you think?”
She bounced in my arms, and I bit back a groan. Thank, God, I didn’t have contamination issues, and Brayleigh was in much better form, back to her usual sunny self.
You’re the contaminant.
Upstairs, I stood her up in the tub and stripped off her dirty clothes. Rolling her diaper into a ball, I stuffed it in the bathroom garbage pail. That would be ripe tomorrow.
It’s okay. Compromises must be made.
Grabbing the roll of toilet paper, I began to wipe her down but mainly succeeded in painting her. “Oh, Dolly. We need wet wipes.”
Wet wipes were in her bedroom. Could I leave her in the empty tub for the fifteen seconds it took to grab the wipes?
“Okay, dolly. You stay right here and wait for Minnie, okay?”
I backed away toward the door and held out my palms. “Don’t move.”
She looked at me curiously, then plunged her hand between her thighs. “Yucky…” Her face stricken, she held the offensive limb out for my observation then her face crumpled in dismay. “Yucky!”
I went back to her and kneeled beside the tub. “Okay, okay. No problem,” I assured her, or maybe myself. “We’ve got everything we need right here. Lots of water.”
Unfortunately, the addition of water with no washcloth simply changed her poop to the consistency of acrylic paint.
I began to laugh at the sheer lunacy of my situation. If I ever suspected God of having a sick sense of humor, tonight confirmed it.
Brayleigh, however, did not find it humorous at all, and burst into tears.
“Okay, dolly. Okay. We’re going to do this.” I turned the tap back on, checking the temperature several times before tugging her hands into the flow. Baby body wash rescued us both. Once her hand was clean, I spun her around, aimed her bottom under the water, and encountered the same problem as before. Acrylic paint in no color anyone would ever want.
I squirted the baby wash over her bum and tried again to no avail.
“I clean, Sparky?”
Swallowing hard, I formed my hand into a paddle, pressing my fingers tightly together, and began to wash her tiny bum.
Did you molest that baby?
Bile rose in my throat.
My need to pee grew exponentially with my panic.
“Almost, dolly,” I choked out the answer to her question.
When she was clean enough, I turned off the water, and she howled. “Tubby! I want tubby!”
“You’re right, you’re right. I promised you a tubby.” I looked at my phone. One a.m. I needed to pee.
“One minute,” I bargained, holding up my finger. “Just one minute!”
She stuck her finger into the back of her mouth. “Owie.”
Oh, God! Can you die of E. coli exposure from your own feces? Of course, you can. I shook my head while I turned the tap back on, poured baby wash over her hands, and rolled her little hands inside mine before rinsing them off and repeating the process again.
As soon as I released her hands, they went back to her mouth. She needed Tylenol and a popsicle. While her bum cheeks were clean, there were many folds that were not.
I pointed at her. “Don’t move!”
As I ran the ten steps into her bedroom, scenarios flashed through my mind.
