Poop and Death

That pretty much sums up my day today and it was pretty evenly divided - poop in the morning, death in the afternoon. (Just so no one gets worries, the deaths were not of people or pets.)

I got up this morning, ate breakfast, nursed Ronan - my usual morning routine. Tom changed him before going to bed himself, which was nice, although he put him in a disposable diaper - this became a problem. After playing with Ronan for awhile, I became aware of certain smells indicating the need for a diaper change. Got him onto the changing pad, undid his onesie and found my hands covered in poop. He'd had a major blowout, although it seemed that most of the poop ended up places other than his diaper - his back, his legs, his arms (as he reached down to grab his legs). It was pretty bad. So I wiped him off as best I could with wipes and then it was time for a bath.

Bath ended, put him in a new (cloth) diaper, go back out to play. A little while later, he starts fussing; he has a wet diaper. Go back to nursery to change him, get his diaper off, he pees on me. No big deal, I'm quite used to that now (although it's been awhile since that's happened). I get his diaper on, put him in his crib and go into the guest room to change shirts (I keep clothes in there so I don't have to sneak into our room while Tom's sleeping). Walk in to find one of the dogs had left a big, steamy pile for me in there. Fantastic. So I clean that up, walked out to get the carpet cleaner, only to step in a little bit more that the dog had left closer to the door. Even better. side track to clean my foot, then finally get the carpet cleaner and clean up the rest of the mess. Turn off the cleaner only to hear Ronan screaming and crying from his crib. I run in to pick him up and his face is all red with tears streaming down. I felt so bad for him. But then he ate and life was good once more. Thus concluded our crappy morning. (And really, this all occurred between 9 a.m. and 10:30 - I was a little nervous about what the rest of the day held in store.)

So, we go about the rest of late morning/early afternoon without much ado. I washed diapers and then hung them out to dry. Around 3, I took Ronan out with me to check on the diapers, along with the dogs. All of a sudden, I hear a scuffle going on and turn to see Shadow pouncing on something, with Loki hot on his trail. Turns out Shadow had caught a mouse (or some kind of small rodent). But he didn't just kill it and eat it. No, he definitely is a "play-with-your-food" kind of dog. He grabbed it in his mouth, threw it in the air, then let it drop back on the ground and run. Then he stepped on it, only to find out it squeaked. This was perfect for Shadow - he loves squeaky toys! So he kept doing that - step, squeak, step, squeak. I felt bad for the thing, but I figured that's nature for you. Eventually, Shadow did kill it and then just laid down next to it - he looked so satisfied.

That was our first death experience. Then we found a dead chipmunk in our driveway and another one our front step. I'm not sure how those died - the one in the driveway didn't look like it had been run over, but you never know. And the dogs don't go out the front door, so I don't think they're the culprit. I discovered these corpses on our way to get the mail, which is at the end of our driveway. Once I got there, I saw the saddest one. Someone ran over the groundhog that lives back by our shed. While I'm sure groundhogs aren't necessarily great for one's lawn, I really liked watching this guy. I'd never seen groundhogs in Minnesota and they're just so furry and generally laid back - unless something, say two dogs bounding out of the house, scares them and then they can really run.

Anyway, that was our day today. While he is too young to actually understand it, Ronan was exposed to important concepts such as the circle of life, the food chain, and the importance of looking both ways before you cross the street.