Babies Tale

Dirty Works: If you’re a parent, you know poo. Not Winnie the Pooh, though you’ve probably encountered him once or twice, too. Poo poo, the real deal. The stuff of legend.

Every parent has a good poo story. There’s that time Isabella’s diaper somehow split open in the car seat or when Justin took his diaper off by himself in the restaurant? That was fun. No matter how good your story is, though, I promise I’ve got you beat. I did time as a preschool teacher.

You think you’re prepared for this stuff going in, really you do. Maybe you have kids of your own, or you’ve babysat tons, or you have lots of little nieces and nephews and you just love taking care of them. But nothing, really, can ready you for the big diaper leagues: the industrial-strength stenches of an institutional setting; the staggering diversity of recycled foodstuffs (oh my goodness, what was he eating!); the places that stuff can go-as if it had locomotive power of its own sometimes; the sheer, weighty, volume of it.

Now, I didn’t start out as a preschool teacher completely unschooled. I had kids of my own; I went for a year of training and certification-with some very specific instructions on diapering, I might add. I had expectations and the qualifications that justified them, so I thought. Then I started work.

My career began the day after a hurricane hit our area and knocked out the power. School went on since we had lots of windows and wonderful natural lighting, and no electrical toys and gadgets anyway. What we didn’t have, however, was a window in the bathroom.

My very first professional diaper I changed by flashlight. And it didn’t go well. Somehow, in the dark and amidst the general odor, I didn’t notice the-relatively-solid mass that had fallen to the floor as the diaper was removed. Suffice it to say, we both needed a bath by the time that child was changed-and I didn’t even know it.

But that’s not even the worst story. Another school I worked for had a lovely, fashionable, and very clean bathroom for toddlers. A long, low row of sinks, a row of stalls without doors to reduce fears and encourage peer encouragement, beautiful pastel colors and white wainscoting. A very inviting place, really. We also had a pair of toddlers who liked to go together, and since our school philosophy encouraged independence, we encouraged them. And they encouraged each other.

When I found them, they had completely, well, redecorated shall we say? It was a (recycled) food fight. It was just about everywhere-and oh, did I mention, we had a ceiling fan in the bathroom?

Yup, the stuff actually hit the fan.

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