Shit Storm…

People have begun to ask me: “So, how do you like Fatherhood?”. And I don’t, frankly, but this isn’t a surprise to me. It’s unfathomable to most people, but it’s what I’ve always felt and what I expected at this stage. I have, however, figured out a way to explain the feeling.

It’s like commuting home on a Friday night through stop and go traffic-

You want nothing more than for the journey to be over. You can’t stop thinking about how much happier you’d be doing anything but your current task. And yet, you don’t get out of the car, or park and wait til traffic is done, or decide to not leave work at all. Instead, you suffer through it… cause this will be the low-point of the days to come. That’s where I am.

And the hardest part for me is the special relationship I have with my son.

I’m not talking about anything cute here. I mean the adventure that is our late night feeding and changing extravaganza! For reasons known only to him, my son waits until we are all alone and I remove the diaper before he lets loose all bodily functions.

I know what you’re thinking; “Oh, that happens to everyone.” There’s even a commercial out right now for… something… where a boy fire-hoses everything in an entire room. But urine is only a part of the problem.

I always thought the term “shit-storm” was reserved for terrible situations in war movies, probably involving a muddy trench or an assault on an unattainable position. However, it is an actual occurence of untamed excrement.

And I know this doesn’t happen to everyone. My wife hasn’t been shit on. My mother-in-law doesn’t get shit on. I have a friend with twins who often changed both of them at once and he never got shit on.

It’s happened to me so much I’d have to stop and count. But that seems a disgusting waste of my poor math skills. He waits until it’s me alone in the middle of the night and uncorks his bowels with near supernatural force.

You think I’m exaggerating. Oh, no, I will be graphic. Imagine laying on your back naked and deciding to let loose a really big crap. Tough to even think about, I know, but how much force do you think you could muster? Think you could fire one past your ankles?

My son does it every single time. He’s got an ass canon.

And tonight he upped the ante.

First there was the stream of urine, which I corked. Then when that ceased he nailed me with supersonic soft serve. While donning my Haz-Mat suit and filling toxic waste bags he began to pee again. Much cussing and cleanup later revealed a warzone of three diapers, two onesies, three burp cloths, a wet blanket and pee stained shirt.

And somewhere in his little infant brain began a countdown. 5…. New clean clothes. 4… Ready for bed. 3… Return to the rocking chair 2… Dad’s calm again. 1….

Projectile vomit. As if his mouth had seen his ass showing off and wanted to show it could still compete.

I let loose an involuntary line of expletives so profound that the dog came scampering from her nap in our room to see what the hell was going on. She walked through the living room smelling the piles of soiled clothing and looked at me like…

“Did it explode? This never happens to Mom. What’s your problem?”

And she’s right, of course. I doesn’t happen to my wife because Bodie reserves his arsenal of bodily functions for me alone.

This is our special relationship.

Maybe one day we’ll have a special bond over cars or rock-climbing or something. In the mean time I have considered peeing right back at him. I’d use it as a teaching moment, of course… showing him how it’s really done.

But for now I’m waiting in stop and go traffic, behind a bus, on the receiving end of the tailpipe.

And it’s a long way home.