This, they didn't cover in the parenting books.

So, today being Monday, my lovely friend J watches the Hatchling in the morning so I can get some writing done. Friends like these = awesome. I brought lunch back for us when I went to pick the Hatchling up, and we sat in the backyard while the kids ran around in their swim diapers and nothing else, making little stops at the wading pool, the slide, the sandbox, the water table - generally being the adorable wee kidlets that they are. We finished lunch and I took the Hatchling inside to get her dressed before going home. I went to peel off her swim diaper, not bothering to check it first because there were no external signs - smell, look, feel - that I needed to. WHY AM I SO STUPID, INTERNETS? We're standing on J's nice wool rug, I'm peeling down the diaper, and WHAMMO, my hand is suddenly full of poop. MY BARE HAND. FUUUUULLLLLL of it. OMG SO GROSS.

"Ack! Poop!" is all I can manage to sputter out, trying to hold the Hatchling still with my non poopful hand. J, valiantly trying to suppress her gag reflex, comes running with wipes and paper towels, and tries to get the Hatchling down onto a changing pad without spreading fecal matter over the entire living room. I am frantically wrapping my handful in 270 layers of paper towel and scrubbing my hands as if in preparation for surgery. I am suddenly struck by the thought that I should not throw my paper-wrapped poo in her kitchen garbage. I run around her kitchen like a headless chicken looking for somewhere more appropriate to stow it. "I don't know where to put the poop!" I yell. "Just stick it in the garbage - I'll take it out right away" J yells back. I pitch the poo and run back into the living room where J, helpless with laughter, is trying to wrestle the damn swim diaper off the Hatchling's legs, which are covered with poo. Finally, god knows how, we get the diaper off and I clean the Hatchling's poopy limbs with the aid of approximately twelvety billion wipes. Fortunately, she was not in one of her squirmy moods, or I'd still be at J's house hosing the area down with Lysol. This is, without a doubt, the grossest parenting moment I have had to date.

Moral of the story: ALWAYS CHECK FOR POOP. Christ.