My poor baby
17 days after my son was born, I had gotten maybe 17 hours sleep since his birth. A bit here, a bit there, the first week I hadn't slept at all - he had been born with a high bilirubin count and not knowing that this is reasonably normal (and having doctors telling me it was a worry) I had basically stood with him during every minute of his life - holding his hand and being there with him during the light treatments, during him sleeping, doing a lot of bottle feeding (of expressed milk) so his mother could get some sleep, and of course - changing his diapers every 90 minutes.

Most of this happened while we were in the hospital, but finally - we were home, things were resolved and I was going to go to bed - early and thoroughly. I was truly, devotedly looking forward to real sleep.

My wife decided "oh you're going up? why don't you take him with you and you both can get to bed early!"

It doesn't really work that way, and I'm not sure if my wife was just as brain dead as I was at the time and believed what she said, or is just a cruel and heartless woman, but I took him along with me and gave the wife some time to herself.

Curling up next to him, with him snuggling up against my body is one of the best feelings in the world, but it isn't really good for getting deep sleep. Still, I prepared to get a full 90 minutes or so of exhaustion-sleep, as that was the most I could expect before he would be hungry or need changing.

Right on schedule - 90 minutes later, he started wiggling and letting me know - he had a full diaper.

And this is where I think I qualified for insanity.

I got up to change my son's diaper, an action I was well well trained to do already.

In my mind though... things were a little bit different. Somewhere in the last 24 hours I had heard someone talking about Dungeons and Dragons, about how some groups you play with are great - and some are horrible.

In my mind, with the surety of dreams and late night stupidity - I somehow KNEW that my son's poop, deviously hidden in his diaper - was the ploy of a D&D group that was just taking the piss out of me, in poo form.

They had made this little scenario up! And they thought I couldn't tell.

These were my thoughts as I began to get up and move to the changing table - and understand - I was completely and utterly serious. I had no filter going on between me, reality, fantasy and the weird half dream world of no-sleep-exhaustion I'd been living in the last week.

As I stood and felt the weight of my son and his diaper, it went further.

"I cannot believe these guys, they must think I'm idiot - they've teleported their characters into the diaper. Do they think I won't figure it out?"

I could tell there was a little forest scene in the diaper, and that their characters were hiding behind the trees, waiting to spring out and make me look foolish.

I weighed him in my hands "That's at least six fighters worth in there"

He wiggled in my hands "There's a huge battle! They're fighting amongst themselves"

As I sat up and he seemed to get heavier "And they have horses"

Getting my hand under his diaper to carry him properly "The heat, someone just cast fireball, there must be a wizard attacking from a distance!"

As I walked towards the changing station on the other side of the room, I started to get upset "This is horribly unfair and I am not amused, how childish they must be to think my son's pants are a proper medium for their jokes and selfish squabbles!"

I'm full blown piqued and annoyed with these imaginary people who are having their imaginary characters secretly fight in my son's diapers for their amusement and cheap gamesmanship. "They think I won't know they're doing this? Of course I know everything that happens in my son's diapers! The sheer cheekery!"

As I attempt to unwrap him from his swaddling I begin to see their plan for hiding the situation, there's layers upon layers of misdirection and obfuscation - every fold and turn of the baby blanket is a physical manifestation of the convoluted beliefs and actions of these selfish gamers trying to use my baby's bottom for their own ends.

My hands continue the rote and mindless actions of laying my little tyke out on the changing station (now sans blanky) and moving his long shirt out of the way so I can remove his diaper. He struggles to avoid being exposed to the cold and I interpret that as futile attempts to cover up for the imaginary players and their shennanigans.

I reassure him - out loud - not just in my confused mind - but in the real world - that it's ok, and that I know what's going on, and what I'll find in his diaper.

Part of me is pretty confident that I will not be finding a section of forest with little people darting about the trees in full armor and flashes of light going off when I pull the diaper down, but instead will be finding the much more familiar and normal deposits you would expect.

But a larger, still sleeping part of me, tries to figure this out and realizes - this is only true because the gaming group must have retreated from the underpants of my son to ... the kitchen.

The utter bastards.

I am going to get these asses and show them my wrath.

My baby is changed, nicely too - there's no mess, my daddy patterns are strong and can handle a whole adventuring party's delivery of baby poo without flinching or hesitation.

But Now I need to talk to the fuckers in the kitchen and have this out.

...

I'm not sure what I would have said when I got to the kitchen, I know I was pretty steamed... but somewhere in the process of navigating the carpeted stairs in my socks, my body woke me up enough in self preservation that I was able to view reality a little clearer, and I did *not* yell at anyone for selfishly having their epic medieval battles in my son's diapers, nor did I find the arcane high level wizard who obviously placed the whole explosive situation there with his magic...

No, I just handed my wife the baby and then went to write this down.

Cause I thought you'd enjoy it.

And you should be warned.

No gaming in my son's diapers.

I. Will. Not. Have. IT.

That is all.
( Allisade would love to hear from you, Thu 21 Jul 2011, 19:47, 10 replies)

You spelt nappy wrong.
Go back to bed.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 21 Jul 2011, 19:58, closed)

I always do that...
my apologies =)

I wish I could sleep - my son's teething now and we're doing a huge project at work, between the two it's been a couple weeks again now since I've had anything you could call sleep...

Kinda curious what I'm going to end up doing with this project.
( Allisade would love to hear from you, Thu 21 Jul 2011, 20:10, closed)

Good luck with it all.
We got off quite light with teething, but I still haven't slept properly in 5 years, to the point where I now consider 6:15 to be a lie in. Given that I had permanent panda eyes before becoming a parent, the next logical career move for me will be as a full time extra in zombie films.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 21 Jul 2011, 21:08, closed)

I can back this up
Sleep doesn't live here anymore either.
(waxdart hello., Fri 22 Jul 2011, 14:33, closed)

A heady combination
Oxytocin+sleep deprivation=funky
(CADmonkey rollllllllled another one, just like the other one, Thu 21 Jul 2011, 19:58, closed)

Pleasantly nuts

( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Thu 21 Jul 2011, 20:02, closed)

hehe
That's a great story, and as a dad I can relate to it*. Classic sleep deprivation hallucinations.

*except for the D&D subject matter, I'm not that interested**.

**sad.
( Purple Martin is board sigless, Fri 22 Jul 2011, 5:12, closed)

What's the name of that BBC technology show on News 24?
ah yes... "click"
( lucosade is counting down the minutes until, Fri 22 Jul 2011, 10:46, closed)

Wow, this is all kinds of crazy. click
(tyrellsOwl, Fri 22 Jul 2011, 13:18, closed)

How did you know...
...that you weren't right the whole time?
(rampants, Fri 22 Jul 2011, 14:55, closed)