Being a mother to small children generally means being covered in their bodily fluids.I am SO over it. I can't wait until everyone can keep their damn bodily fluids to themselves, or at least get them in the proper receptacle at all times.

It's only 11:00am and I already have had direct bodily contact with the following:
Pee
Poop
Snot
Spit-up

Like, literally I have had it ON me. Not on my shirt, but on my hand, or on my shoulder, or in my hair. Direct skin contact. And the best part is that I don't see a shower in my future until late this afternoon, at best.

A childless male friend of ours was over the other day and we were discussing Adrian's flushable gDiapers. (Yessiree, scintillating conversation over at our house. A regular salon, it is...)

I was describing the process by which you flush the diaper insert. First you have to tear the edge off, then you empty the fluffy pulp inside into the toilet, stir it to break up lumps, and flush.

Our friend was horrified..."You mean, you have to touch the poopy diaper? What if you get some on your hands?"

I thought of the previous day, when Adrian had mysteriously gone two days without pooping. He suddenly pooped while sitting on my lap, and the force and volume was so great that it gushed out the leg of the diaper and flowed onto my pants in a viscous, mustardy stream.

"Yeah well, no matter what happens you will get poop on you at some point. That's just part of the joy of babies and small children. It's gross, but you sort of get over it."

Although I'm not really over it. I don't flip out or anything, but I don't exactly LOVE it either, if you know what I mean. I still think "ICK" every single time. Or I just say it out loud.

A friend came over with her 9 month old baby when I was pregnant with Julian. He spit up a little bit on the couch and I was horrified. I thought that was the most disgusting thing. He had a little bit dribbling out of his mouth afterwards and I was completely grossed out.

HA! I have literally been SOAKED in baby barf. Had it all down my front, my back, and in my hair too. Well, it is MY baby. That makes a difference. It's also MY breastmilk that he's spitting up, but I don't relish being soaked in my own bodily fluids either. Secondhand it's even worse.

The other night I woke up to check on Adrian and discovered him in a sopping wet diaper that had soaked the whole pad underneath him. The volume of pee that can come out of one small 14 pound baby is absolutely astounding.

I got up, changed his diaper and his clothing, swapped out the pad for a clean dry one, changed MY nightgown (which had gotten wet from laying next to him) and took him back to bed.

Just as I was thinking how great it felt to lie back down and be dry again, I reached over to give Julian a pat and discovered that HE had soaked his Pull-Up and was also laying in a puddle of pee on a soaked pad. Ugh, DAMN it! So I got him up, got his nightgown off, pulled off his wet diaper, swapped out the wet pad, and luckily Adrian slept through the whole thing.

A few nights later I switched to cloth for Julian, as part of my campaign to stop using disposable diapers, training pants, etc. He gets much more uncomfortable at night if he pees in them, so he's more likely to wake up and ask to use the potty, instead of peeing in his sleep.

Well, he DID wake up and ask to go potty. I was so thrilled. I stripped off his diaper and he peed on his potty. When we went back to bed, I left him nakeybutt, since he typically just pees once at night and then is dry until morning.

Ha, but not THIS morning. I woke up around 5:00am to a soaking wet back. Julian was laying in bed facing me, and had peed a stream right onto the back of my nightgown. I was soaked, the bed pad was soaked. His nightgown was still miraculously dry.

Sigh...very trying times. I am really, really, really tired of being peed on. Since then I practically wrap an entire bath towel around the lower halves of both kids at night. Then add some sort of waterproof layer on top. And encourage midnight peeing on the potty. We haven't had any major pee leaks since then, but that's probably just luck. I am REALLY glad that I bought a big stash of these bedpads, because otherwise I could have really had a disaster and had to change sheets and stuff.

Anyway, it does get better, but I am still waiting eagerly for the day that everyone can keep their pee, poop, snot and barf to themselves. I'm sure there will be a downside to not getting snotty kisses anymore or wet nighttime embraces, but right now I'm looking forward to being dry and clean most of the time.

In the meantime, I'm grateful for baby wipes and perfume.