500 Diapers... almost literally...

Right before someone got beaned in the head with the "window baton," and then there was a dirty diaper...

Right before the toys were thrown into the furnace, and three dirty diapers magically appeared in less than five minutes...

Right before touching the ornaments on the Christmas tree yet AGAIN (10th time, maybe), and getting smacked on the fingers, and finding yet another surprise in someone's diaper...

Right before the piano lid crashed down on little fingers, the piano books slid off onto a little head, and someone turned to run away, slipped, and crashed into the piano bench... and then... you guessed it... we had dirty diapers...

Monday morning witnessed the departure of the beloved Jenna to Tucson for some much-needed R&R, while her little joys (Andres, Gabriel, Timi, and Moises) were left in the charge of me, myself, and I for a day and a half. I soon discovered, however, that "I" had made a serious miscalculation... and "me" and "myself" weren't far behind.

You see... it had been... well... probably seven or eight years since I last changed a diaper. And I certainly hadn't done it while trying to explain (in Spanish) why the horses on the ceiling (drawings) were there, why the pink lotion couldn't be squirted down one's pants, why my glasses didn't belong in the diaper container, why it was not a good thing to roll off the changing table, why the diaper couldn't go on one's head, and why my hair wasn't edible.

It was even more fun to hear, "Donde esta Jenna? Cuando va a regresar? Si? Si? Si?" ["Where is Jenna? When is she going to come back? Yes? Yes? Yes?"] Jenna, my friend... you are loved. I was only asked where you were, why you were there, and when you were coming back every... oh, I don't know... ten minutes or so.

So to recount... three of my favorite moments ("favorite" being a relative term here because I am glad nothing bad happened, and I can laugh now):

1. We were painting watercolors in the morning (countdown: 7 diapers down, 100 more to go... before noon), and Timi was having some issues whining. So... we went outside to "talk about our feelings," and when we came back I saw that Moises had this beautiful cerulean blue color coating his cheeks, chin, tongue, and teeth. Oh... what a little cutie. A little cutie who had just imbibed his entire cup of water... that's right... the water for his paintbrush... chock-full of blue, green, brown, and purple paint. Yummmm. So, like any mom, I prayed that the watercolors weren't toxic, made him spit, wiped his tongue off, tried to get him to drink more water (which he poured all over himself), gave him a little paddle on his butt, and sent him off to eat dirt... which he does regularly, and seems to digest well.

2. Nighttime. Almost asleep. The boys have been showered, put to bed with hugs, kisses, prayers, and songs, and I am about to drift into oblivion. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! shrieks an alarm from somewhere in Jenna's room, and in my sleep-hazed panic I figure that a child is being murdered, and I have been sleeping on the job... so I jump up, catch my toe on the rug, stumble head-first into the wall, jump around on one foot while massaging my banged cranium, finally locate the direction the terrible noise is emanating from... and find a watch that has no band, no light, but the loudest alarm I have ever heard in my life. Pushing buttons I finally get the noise to stop, and crawl gratefully back into bed. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! once again, and rushing this time to stop the noise I peer closely at its darkened face, until I can make out the button "RESET," which I do push, and then doubt will work... so I carry the watch into the bathroom (this is the rational part), stuff it between the folds of a towel back in a corner, and close the door on it. Ha... that's right watch. Can't get the best of me. Stupid alarms.

3. "Effany! Effany! Phny! Phny! Eph! Eph! Pthhhhh! Pthhhh!" These are my new names, christened by the four little balls of dynamite listed above. These are also the names yelled every time I needed to watch someone jump off the top step, look at the giant Santa Claus in the neighbor's yard, acknowledge that I heard the train too, and yes, I think that is an airplane in the sky, read a story, sing "Deep and Wide" five times in a row, play dead on the floor while clambered on top of by four squirming little bodies, push the swing faster, or remember to kiss the "me duele" [I hurt] spots...

What a joy!

What a ton of work...

What a lot of respect I have (yet again) for my co-worker.

What a bunch of really, really smelly diapers... ;)