Pants on a Snake

My son, "Boo", is just over 1 year old now. He's a baby linebacker. I say this only because you, the reader, need to understand how exhausting what I am about to lament upon really is.
Have you ever wrestled a large dog, by wrestle I mean play, because if you put your dog in tights and were pinning him to a mat you have issues that need to be addressed IMMEDIATELY. Or even about an 8 or 9 year old boy? Do you remember wrestling with your sibling or friends as a child? I am asking because I need you to reach back into the the recesses of your mind and pull those experiences out and put them right up in the front of the line of old memories, reflect on them a little.

My brother, who is younger, and was bigger than I was, if you wrestled around with him you expected to get hurt he is now 6'5" and probably weighs 280 at most. My son is 3 feet tall, yes I said 3 feet, I didn't hit the wrong key and you are not seeing things. He also weighs about 30 pounds, although I think it depends on how full his diaper is at the time. Well same rules apply with him, if you wrestle around with him, expect to get hurt. He doesn't quite have those motor skills working like he wants so he flails a lot and it hurts a lot more. He also is at the age where he doesn't want to be held down for any length of time he sounds like a baby lion if he is held for what he perceives as too long which by mommy standards is about oh 30 seconds tops.

Here is a typical diaper change...

I pull down his pants, pull off the socks ( I hate the idea of him getting poop on them!!!) and by this time, and that is only if I was fast, he has decided he's done with the diaper change, and no he didn't send out a memo, ask permission, give me a heads up, nothing other than a death roll. If you have ever seen an alligator catch it's prey it holds onto it in its mouth and roll until the victim is so confused it doesn't know up from down, or if it's coming or going thus making it and easy kill. My son subscribes to the same philosophy of said alligator when it comes to diapering.

So, I reach for the new diaper Boo twists to the left and pinches my fingers between his ankles.

"Booboo! What are you doing, that hurts mommy?"

While he has not the verbal skills to reply his face says "yeah and your point is what?" and then a nice twist to the right. But that isn't working so he arches his back, raising himself off the ground and then twist... POP!

That was my wrist... it does that now. I don't recall a nice popping noise before.... before my son.

"Seriously son, you need to be still... here... play with this..."

CHUNK!

The toy goes flying, this time across the room, whereas it is usually at my face. Because of this I have learned (the hard way of course) we do not give the boy a hard toy, we only give him soft ones, they hurt less and don't leave marks (on me!).

"Eeeeh, grrrrr..." and then the pout comes... and he can pout!

So where were we? We've done the twist left, the twist right, the arch, the chunk, and somewhere in the middle of all that I get to wipe his butt! We are now on our way to the crawl... he flips back and forth until he can get on his stomach, he then quickly crawls off if he can. I grab whichever leg is closest try and reel him back in, he struggles like a 100 pound Mako. I flip him (gently of course!) onto his back side, lay the new diaper under his butt and we are back at square one! this process repeats until the diaper is finally on, not always straight but it is covering the important parts and that my friends is what is important at this juncture, I am not looking to score points for style I just want the games to be over and get the medal for finishing!

Okay... so the diaper is on... now we have to get him dressed, again.

If you could see my face at this moment in time you would pity me... hell I pity me.

By this time my son has run off and I can hear him giggling somewhere in the house... I hear him banging on the window making his pterodactyl screech at whatever is outside... and now the puppy bark... this is new the puppy bark, I wanted another dog since mine passed and my husbands jokes...

"Well there ya go hon, you got a puppy right there and he'll be potty trained faster!"

I retort "That may be, but I won't have to put pants on a puppy... and I do have to put pants on a snake!"

My son... part alligator, part snake, all boy! You know how wriggly a snake is, how it moves in and out of your fingers, around your neck and through your arms, that is my son when you try and get him dressed after the diaper! As if the diaper wasn't bad enough now he needs clothes? Why can't we belong to a nudest colony!? Oh wait I know why.... I like clothes and I look better in them! If you try to put for example a shirt on the boy you get Saturday night fever! Arm in, arm out, arm up, arm down, head up, head down, head to the side...

"Oh you want that shirt over my head, and my arm in the sleeve? I think not mamma!" And he has two of them, arms that is, so that is double the fun!

Same story different day with the pants, leg in, leg out, foot caught in the pocket, crawl out of the pants, twist, turn, arch the back, leg in, leg out, other leg in, flip and crawl out of the pants. Now if I sit him on my lap and try to put his pants on... LOL... the boy stands up and arches his back so that he starts heading backward over my shoulder... he's a baby so he has kind of a big head and well he's pushing up over my back and then gravity begins to play a part.... you get the idea... 3...2... and I catch him before he lands on that sweet little head.

Is there a moral to this story? No...

Advice to the oh so weary moms just like me... nope none of that either.

Co misery, it isn't much but that is all I have to offer...