Holy poop.

Size 6 diapers.

Let me just start by telling you that both boys are wearing size 6 diapers. I have never seen any baby or toddler wearing this giant sized diaper before. And maybe it works for J, who should be potty trained but isn't. But it definitely doesn't work for Baby I, and he's who I clean up after the most.

Baby I has had some teething related bowel issues for the last few days. He's got one runny nostril and he won't eat anything. He's cranky and sleeping too much and the only thing he likes to chew on right now is ice.

For two days I have been calmly dealing with diaper leakage. This morning I did an entire load of laundry, all Baby's, all soiled.

Then this afternoon happened.

Now, I've had to deal with a lot of really gross things over the years. I've been puked on, which actually, when it's a baby, isn't so bad. I've had to clean up the puke of older kids, but it's usually in a puddle on the carpet (always on the carpet) and it's not my favorite thing to do, but it's not such a complicated chore.

But there have been exactly two instances where I had to fight the urge to add to them mess and just clean it up. One was with my Liam. And one was today.

With Liam, it was totally my fault. I mistook some leftovers for his lunch, and while he loved the curried dish and ate it eagerly and quickly, it took only seconds to travel through his system and come running out the other end. And since he was in his high chair, it streaked out of the thigh of his diaper and ran down his leg.

Fortunately for me, at the time his father was in his home office and he insisted on helping with the clean up. So I had someone there to gag along with me. And I only had half the mess, Liam, to clean up.

Today, I wasn't so fortunate.

Although, strangely enough, Baby I was also in his high chair.

T got him up after nap time and got him all settled for lunch before she left with the older two for R's doctor's appointment. We've been keeping his food pretty simple in our efforts to stop his hiney explosions.

For lunch he was to have rice with a side of saltines and water. He snacked on some left over Cheerios from breakfast while I finished putting some things away that I had been organizing.

I heard him grunting and, silly me, I thought that was a good thing. Lately his bowel movements have been effortless and so I thought all the grunting was a sign of a more substantial pooh.

I kept cleaning up.

He grabbed onto his high chair tray and yelled, "Mama!" And then kept pushing and breathing hard. I began to think that maybe we had gone too far with his diet and he was having a particularly hard time. But he stopped yelling and went back to eating his Cheerios.

I finished cleaning up.

I went to the sink, washed my hands, turned to face him and say something before I would start heating his rice.

The first thing I saw was the puddle under his chair. I was distinctly confused, because last I knew it was impossible for dry Cheerios to puddle. Especially in that color. Then the smell hit me.

I tell you, I have gagged a lot, but I have never gagged like that before. For a good minute I was positive I was going to yack. I had to walk out of the room. When the nausea passed I laughed a little, thinking of my Liam.

But then I had to go back into the kitchen and deal with whatever had just happened in I's diaper. It wasn't going to be pretty. Or easy.

It was on his leg, his sock, the floor, the chair, the chair cover. Then he unknowingly touched it and it was on his hand and arm, too. For once, the dog wasn't under the chair scrounging for dropped food, thank goodness, or it would have been on him too.

I took a deep breath, held it and began wiping up the baby with bar towels that would never see the light of another day.

I had to undress Baby I in the bathtub and rinse him and scrub him for five minutes before I felt better about touching him.

Because I had carried him, legs wrapped in a plastic grocery bag, up the stairs and through the house, the entire house now smelled like, well, death.

I left him in the playroom and ran around the house opening windows and disinfecting any room I had carried him through or any item that happened to be the same color as his pooh, just in case.

It was a good twenty minutes before I got the house back in order and by then, T was walking in the door with a sleeping J and a screaming R, who had received three shots at the doctor's office.

R was too busy screaming to enjoy my rehashing of the last hour, but T got a good laugh.

And she swears she couldn't smell anything.