"I poo poo in da bed mama."
"Yes you did Peanut, but that was days ago. It was an accident. Everything is ok."
This has been our conversation after every nap and each morning as we start our day since Saturday afternoon.
The event itself was unexpected and we certainly tried not to overreact so as not to traumatize her, but it clearly had an impact. She was doing the normal "I don't want to nap" complaints which generally last about 5 minutes before she zonks out for two hours or so. Jason and I had lots of tasks to accomplish during the freedom window (nap) and were moving around the house quietly but quickly. I came in from the garage and could tell that the no-nap cries had escalated to the point where it was clear that something was wrong.
By the time I made it upstairs, I heard Jason go into her room and a second later he calmly but urgently called out "CODE BROWN, CODE BROWN." I was behind him in seconds. He had Lucy on the changing table and was cleaning her up. I grabbed wipes and did a collection. After a quick flush I went back to scoop up all the bedding and friends (damn the stuffed animals and dolls) for a mid-day washing machine field trip.
There has been some debate among the adults in the house about when and how the diaper failure happened. It has been at least eight weeks since Lucy has removed her diaper in the bed and she has never removed a pull up. One theory is that the diaper came off during 'the event' rather than before. We will never know how it happened, but I think the question of why is more of a karmic one rather than logical. Parents of toddlers must experience this at some point.
With all the bedding in the machine and the flurry of activity around getting Miss Lucy put back together the possibility of a nap was zero. She and I went downstairs for quiet time (Curious George) while Jason tried to finish some of the chores we had hoped to knock out together.
Later in the afternoon we sadly discovered that during the rapid clean up, Jason cleaned the kid, I cleaned the bed but neither of us located the actual diaper. These fancy diapers are filled with super absorbent gel. Washing machines are filled with water and the two together are a very bad combination. The 'fabric' in the diapers is not strong enough to withstand the expansion that occurs during a wash / rinse cycle. Upon failure, the diaper released thousands of small gel balls into the machine and all over the sheets and the wet furry friends.
The newly gelled sheets and friends were taken outside shaken violently then rewashed. I'm pretty confident that if Jason had been observed shaking the naked, wet Raggedy Ann dolls on the front porch that the authorities would have been summoned. While the stuffed animals were being violated, the washing machine had to be wiped out and vacuumed. All around - yuck.
I think its kind of sad that the whole event has had such a lasting impact upon Lucy. She looks so sad when she tells me that she 'poo poo in da bed'. I try to be reassuring and we talk about using the potty and telling us before she needs to go. My knowledge of psychological issues is limited to about five college courses in 1989 therefore I'm no expert, but I do recall that too much emphasis on the potty process can really screw a person up. She's so young and I think it's too early to select the issue that she'll be in therapy over just yet. I'd like to wait longer and see what my options are, I'm sure we'll find something much better than toddler poop.
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