True Fuss Tales: Poopocalypse Now!

Another of those archetypal parenting moments that we had, until this morning, managed to avoid.

So, I'm up getting breakfast ready and cleaning up in the kitchen when Fuss climbs under the dining room table. This usually means he's going to poop- he's gotten shy about it lately. So I keep doing my thing and pretending I don't know he's there.

After a while he calls out "Dada....I got poo poo."
I foolishly assume this means he's telling me he's done and requesting a diaper change. "Good job, Fuss! Do you want a clean dipey?"

I approach and everything shifts into slow motion.
Fuss, crouching, holding a big handful of poop out toward me. A long brown smear on the wall behind him. Suspicious discolorations on his pajamas.

"N..o..o..o..o..o..ooooooh!" I exclaim, still in slow mo.

"Dada...got poo poo on my shirt." Fuss states calmly.

And he's doing fine. Covered in poop, sure, but crouching calmly waiting for Dada to come help. Until Dada arrives and promptly freaks out, that is.

"OH MY GOD! WHAT HAPPENED! WHAT ARE YOU DOING! AAAAAAH, DON'T GRAB THAT! HOLD STILL!" Reaching for him desperately, yet gingerly.

And I can see him starting to get upset, his little face crumpling up, thinking he's done something wrong. So I have to calm myself down to calm him down, a common situation. There are all manner of little disasters like this, things that aren't immediately dangerous, just way, way outside your comfort zone where the automatic response is to shout, or grab, or just generally freak out even when, or especially when, it does no earthly good.

And Fuss, sensitive soul that he is, gets upset because you're upset. So I talk myself down in the interest of talking him down.

"It's alright Fuss, you didn't do anything wrong, it's just poo poo, we can clean it up- let's got get some wipes, and then we can take a bath, okay?"

"Okay, dada." Sniffling.


So I wrangle him to the changing table in the bedroom and try waking up the Wife to run a bath while I burn through wipes trying to contain the mess. It went something like this.

"LOVIE! WAKE UP!"

"Mmmrrrmmmm."

"GET UP, I NEED HELP."

"I am up!" qerelously, from deep within a nest of blankets.

"THERE'S SHIT ON THE WALLS, I NEED YOU TO RUN A BATH."

"I am awake! What?!"

"GET UP, RUN A BATH, HE'S COVERED IN POOP."

I eventually made myself clear and she tumbled into the bathroom and got the water going.

The diaper post mortem revealed a gross structural failure colloquially known as a 'blowout'.
My CSI-style reconstruction of the event goes like this:
Fuss is under the table doing his thing, the diaper can't handle it, Fuss thinks "huh, what's that back there?" and feels around, finds a hand full of poop, falls back against the wall and fires up the Dada Signal for help.

So we had an impromptu morning bath while the Wife dealt with the carnage under the dining room table and it all ended up being fine. The impulse to panic will always be there, but hopefully over time I'll figure out when it's the appropriate response and when it's just self indulgence.