Changing Diapers

Dear Ellie,

I might as well come clean.  I like changing your diapers.  Yeah, that sounds weird to me, too.  I always saw changing diapers as one of the chores of parenthood, not one of the joys.  Whenever the nurses ask me if I want to change your diaper, I shrug as if to say, "if I must" and then move with a skip in my step that betrays how I really feel.

It first occurred to me that I liked changing your diapers yesterday morning.  As I was walking toward your crib, I could smell something ripe from halfway down the POD.  It couldn't have been coming from a baby, I surmised.  It was just to pungent.  I followed my nose to the source and there you were, right at ground zero.  When I unclipped the diaper, your entire bottom half was covered and you wasted no time in adding to the deluge.  I cracked my knuckles, brandished a plus sized box of baby wipes, and set to work.

Now, let me be clear.  Dealing with extra poop in a diaper doesn't make it any more enjoyable on my part, but the fact that I came out of the apparent horror show smiling and unphased said something.  There are probably numerous factors involved with the fact that I get enjoyment from changing diapers.  First, I happen to enjoy tedious, repetitive tasks.  Second, I've dealt with considerable diversity of animal poop in the past so baby poop isn't exactly something unusual.  But most of all, I've waited so many years to experience even the most mundane of interactions with a child I could call daughter that even changing diapers is a treat that will never get old.