Instantly, I was awake. My feet hastened up the stairs as the adrenalin rushed through my body. It was worst than I could have imagined. The "lotion" that my son had generously lathered onto his face and hair was in fact, diaper rash cream, one of the hardest substances on earth to remove, as by design, it is supposed to be difficult to remove. There were goopy globs of Desitin everywhere.
On the door. On the floor.
In a book. In a nook.
Oh, Dr Seuss could have had a field day with this one. Only I think it would be more of a horror story than a children's book.
I realized that he must have used his new play table and chair set to reach up to the bin where I keep the Desitin hidden away to prevent something like this from happening. My eyes finally focused onto the completely empty tube of Desitin, and then wandered back to my son, who was so thoroughly covered in the sticky white substance that even his eyelashes were white. All I could think of was Casper the friendly ghost.
I immediately plucked Casper out of his room and swiftly ran into the shower. I had to jump in with him to hold him under the shower head. No matter how hard I rubbed and scrubbed, the Desitin was not budging. I poured handful after handful of expensive Burt's Bees baby wash into his hair and rinsed and repeated in vain. The only thing I seemed to accomplish with every scrub was to convince my son that I was trying to drown him.
I scrubbed. He screamed.
I scrubbed harder. He screamed louder.
I could not remove all of the cream from his hair, but at least I managed to get it off his face and eyes. I surrendered and dressed him, and retreated to the kitchen to get breakfast.
As I sat helplessly in my chair, my son tried to eat his cheese and crackers through choked-up sobs. He finally completely broke down from the traumatic shower experience and wailed ,"I need a 'ug!"
I need a hug too, I thought to myself. I opened up my arms and he climbed into my lap, and we just embraced quietly. I gently caressed and kissed his face, which distinctly smelled like a clean baby's bottom. I tried to run my fingers through his hair, but I kept getting caught in the matted clumps of diaper rash cream.
In that moment, we both silently resolved to put the whole "baby-butt-cream-drowning-in-the-shower-fiasco" behind us and move on with our day. In was in that very moment that my clueless husband woke up and entered the kitchen to observe the quiet embrace...diaper cream-scented Casper the friendly ghost snuggled under a wet raccoon-my sopping wet hair dripping down my back, last night's mascara in streaky half moons under my eyes.
"Wow, it sure is a quiet morning," he remarked in ignorant bliss. Then he proceeded to ask me what I put in Casper's hair.
After seconds of steely silence and death-glares, I snapped...
"It's baby butt cream...AND I DID NOT PUT IT IN HIS HAIR!!! I tried to wash it out, but..."
I didn't even bother finishing the sentence. Just one look at the plastered white locks of hair on Casper's head and it was obvious that I could not wash it out.
"Do you think we should shave his head?" my husband asks in a matter-of-fact fashion.
Although I think the situation may have merited such extreme action, I didn't think my son could handle any further drama.
I still have not finished my coffee, so I'll decide how to handle the situation later. In the meantime, diaper- cream scented Casper is going about his day as if nothing is wrong, and I am quite tempted to do the same.
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