“Look, Adam! She’s a natural!” Mrs. Roth exclaimed happily. She had to be kidding.
Mr. Roth appeared at the door and informed his wife she was needed. She excused herself, but not before managing to whip out her cell phone and take a picture of Adam and me staring down at a baby like we were trying to figure out a map. Suddenly, the warm, tiny person in my arms turned his head and nuzzled my boob.
“Why’s he doing that?” I asked.
“Because he’s a guy,” Adam muttered.
“He’s trying to nurse,” Abby said with a laugh. “It’s instinctive.”
“Oh! Sorry, baby. The tap is dry,” I said uncomfortably.
“I just want you to know little dude,” Adam said solemnly, “that I had nothing to do with what’s going down tonight.”
“What’s that smell?” I asked, sniffing.
“Diaper bag’s right here,” Sarah said, grabbing a tote off the floor and handing it to Adam. “We’ll be in the other room, helping Rebekah get ready.” With that, she and Abby quickly left.
“Do you know how to change one of these?” I asked Adam, anxiously.
“Are you kidding? We have to find somebody else to do this.”
“Adam, between the two of us, we have fourteen years of higher education. How hard can it be?”
“I’m not worried about how hard it is. I’m worried about how disgusting it is.”
“Well, I’m going to try. Better to practice on somebody else’s kid first.”
“Before what?” he asked, cautiously.
“I was just joking.” Suddenly, I felt very defensive.
“You’re sure your pill is working, right?”
“Yes! Don’t worry, if I ever want to have a baby it doesn’t have to be with you,” I said, sensing rejection and fighting back.
“Well, who in hell would it be with?” he asked, sounding irate.
“I don’t know. I don’t have a crystal ball.”
“I’ve got news for you, Lilith. If you’re going to be bearing anyone’s children, they’ll be mine,” he said heatedly. Suddenly, the baby started crying.
“Now look what you did,” I chastised. “You made him cry.”
“I didn’t make him cry. A shitty diaper made him cry. Now you want to take this on, I’ll take it on with you. Bring him over here,” Adam demanded, storming off with the diaper bag. I wondered vaguely if he was only talking about a diaper.
I got up and followed him as carefully as I would if I were carrying a live bomb. Adam kneeled down on the rug, opened the diaper bag, and looked at the contents like he was trying to figure out how to split the atom. As soon as I laid the little squirmy person down on the floor he stopped crying and gave Adam and me a ‘hey, you guys know what you’re doing, right?’ look.
“Okay, you get the wipes ready,” I said, steeling my nerves. “I’m going in.”
“Wait!” He grabbed my arm. “We should put something down underneath him so that we don’t ruin the rug.”
“Oh, good thinking! What should we use?”
“Well, it should be something that could be wiped off easily, like …” He looked around the room and his eyes fell on a desk in the adjacent study. He got up, ran over and grabbed something. “This will work,” he said, crouching down beside me again.
“A mouse pad?”
“Why not? He’s small enough.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll lift his legs, you slide it under him.”
“On three, one … two … three.” I lifted his teeny tiny legs a little and Adam slid the mouse pad with the picture of Einstein on it under the baby’s bottom.
“Okay, get the wipes ready,” I said again.
“Wait! What are we going to put it in?”
“The trash, no?”
“You can’t just put it in the trash. You have to seal it up in something so it doesn’t make everything smell.”
“Okay, how about ….” I got up, ran over and grabbed a padded yellow envelope from the desk where Adam had found the mouse pad.
“That should work,” he said, nodding.
“Is there anything else, before …?”
“No. I think it’s go time,” he said quietly. I took a deep breath and pulled open the tapes holding the diaper together. Gently I eased it back … “Get down!” Adam ordered, knocking me out of the way just in time to avoid the stream of urine that flew past me.
“How do you shut it off?!” I cried.
“It’s not a fire hydrant!” he answered. Luckily, it stopped on its own a second later. We sat back up cautiously.
“So much for the rug,” I said.
“Yeah, she’s probably going to want to have that steam cleaned,” he agreed. “Yo! What’s she feeding this kid? Mustard?”
“Maybe that’s just what baby poop looks like.”
“You know I could have lived happily for a long time without that knowledge.”
“Ugh, this thing is gross. We need to get it off of him. Get the wipes and the envelope ready. I guess I’ll lift and you wipe?”
“Wait, why do you get to lift?” he asked, unhappily.
“Fine, you lift.”
“Okay, let’s do this,” he said with a heavy sigh. The baby just stared at us dubiously. Adam lifted the tiny legs and I began furiously trying to clean off the baby’s bottom, shoving wipes into the envelope madly. “Will you hurry up down there?” he nagged.
“I’m going as fast as I can, God damn it!” I growled. “Okay! He’s clean. I’m removing the diaper.” I grimaced and grabbed the putrid object out from under the baby, immediately attempting to get it into the envelope. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working. I had shoved too many wipes in there.
“What the f**k are you doing?!” Adam asked frantically.
“What does ‘fuck’ mean?” asked the four-year-old voice from the doorway. Adam and I both froze.
“Uh, that’s something that …uh,” Adam spluttered.
“What are you doing, Joshie?” Hannah called out from the other room.
“Uncle Adam is telling me about f**king!” he called back. I heard something break. Probably his mother’s heart.
“Get. The. Clean. Diaper,” Adam said through gritted teeth.
Another thing we learned that evening was that diapers rip very easily. It took us several attempts, and several diapers, but with a little ingenuity, we managed to work together to get the job done. Somewhere along the journey, our poopy little friend drifted happily off to sleep.