An Adventure!

by Phil

If I've learned anything from life and every form of media, it's that all adventures worth having start with emptying one's bladder. Is that not right? Well, this adventure starts with pee and so it backs up my claim.

It's amazing how involved a 7 month old can be in changing his own diaper. My son doesn't help in any way; he actually makes it much harder by several degrees, but he is involved. As his hands try to grab everything within reach (and I mean everything), many accidents can occur. As it happened yesterday, I pulled off his diaper just as his hands shot downward and he simultaneously unloaded a torrent of urine. In my mind, pee-covered hands and a tendency to chew on those same hands doesn't exactly make for pleasant combination. Based on how difficult it was to keep my kid from eating his hands at that moment, I think he has different ideas about what is acceptable.

So after giving his hands a cursory cleaning with a wipe and getting him into his pajamas for the night, I took him one room over into the bathroom to wash his hands all proper like. What I didn't anticipate was the amount of fun we were about to have.

He was pretty ho-hum about getting his hands cleaned so I wasn't expecting too much when I stopped the drain and filled the basin with water. It was more of an experiment in seeing what he would do. During bathtime he splashes around a bit, kicking his legs and such, but seems more focused on all of the action of getting clean.

So what would he do?

He would splash!

He would splash like the fate of the world depended on it.

We have discovered the fun of playing in the sink.

About 2 minutes in, as water is practically hitting the ceiling, I had a half second of regret. If water is going everywhere, everywhere includes his pajamas and I'm going to have to change him again. But just as quickly as it flashed through my head, I also realized it didn't matter. Who cares? Ninety percent of discovering the world is going to involve some sort of wardrobe change and I never want to stifle real joy and experimentation on my son's part because I'll have to change his clothes. I'm sure there will be a time in the near future where that last sentence is going to come back to haunt me. But when this much fun is involved, how can you not support it?

So after 20 minutes, as we are both pretty soaked through, I have a brilliant idea that only a father can have. It's truly the type of idea that separates me as a dad from my wife as a mother. Instead of changing him, let's at least try drying him off first... with a blow dryer. Now I only put the blow dryer on low so as to not burn him. It may be an admittedly ridiculous idea but I'm not stupid. And he took it really well.

My baby does not mind being blow-dried.

He just sat there stoically looking around as the wind whipped past his arms and legs. But after about 3 minutes, because of a combination of the large amount of water and the setting of air, no real progress was being made. We were just sitting there in the breeze. So I gave up on that and just changed him into new pj's. It was worth a shot.

So while our adventure was only one room over from his bedroom, it felt like we had gone somewhere really great together, to a place that was cover in water, one that wasn't directed by Kevin Cosnter.

"Can we do it again tomorrow, Dad?"

Also....my son is adorable.