The King’s Lion … Bound for Home!

I should have suspicioned that from his bizarre beginning, my only son would be a bigger prankster than his dad. It was just a few short minutes after he was born, that the courteous, highly-skilled nurse brought him into the welcoming hospital room which was filled with excited, anticipatory family and friends to show us our new bouncing ball of baby joy and our wondrous gift from God.

The helpful instructive nurse soon explained that we needed to get him a good warm bath and clean him up. She suggested that this would be an excellent chance for the youthful, inexperienced, first-time papa to get some necessary practice properly holding him and giving my new son his first thorough cleansing.

When I unwrapped the swaddled blanket that he was warmly nestled into, T. J. had a huge surprise waiting for his new daddy!

As I proudly presented him out in front of me to the jubilant crowd of onlookers there in the hospital room, and exultantly chanting the lyric in my head, “The Circle of Life!” he was as naked as a newborn lion cub and facing directly towards me. Smeared across my exhilarated face was a proud ear to ear grin of a first-time parent who was totally amazed by the huge, awesome blessing and incredible miracle of new life. It was at this precise moment that T. J. began releasing a stream of urine in the form of a rainbow, straight down the front of me!

I thought, well I suppose I will just allow him to finish tinkling since how much could a tiny little newborn bladder be holding inside anyways. Boy was I wrong! It went on and on! His urine flow was more like a mini fire hydrant and soon covered my shirt and then soaked my chest. Continuing on, it also drained down into my pants, and then spilled down onto my shoes until I stood in a puddle of baby’s first piddle.

I looked at the nurse with a disgusted grimace on my face, and she just shrugged and said, “Sorry, I probably should have warned you that during the trauma of child birth a newborn baby really holds in that first big pee so when they release, it is usually a lot!”

Oh … do ya think?

I looked at baby T.J. and he simply had the most completely satisfied, goofy look on his impressionable face. Was this his first prank? I don’t know for certain, but from that day forward he had been a constant goofball, and creative prankster, and a funny, silly, happy kid to be around. We used to say all the time that we do not think that we have honestly ever seen or have known a happier soul in this whole entire world. We rarely ever found him without a warm smile on his face, and most times it was accompanied by jubilant laughter as well.

He really was in need of that first bath now more than ever! So was I, but I felt it would be inappropriate for me to ask the attractive young nurse to give me a bath as well. Instead, I worked with the nurse to learn the best and securest methods to make sure that T.J. was safely, crisply cleansed, properly powdered, and then dutifully diapered. He was then firmly wrapped into his tidy infant blanket and ready to be held and then cuddled by mommy and daddy and our other doting family members who were there with us in the hospital room. Just as I was finally feeling the great swelling accomplishment of having competently completed those entire bundles of scrutinized, overseen, first-timer tasks, a stern painful grimaced look came over T.J.’s crinkled up face. Next, his whole tiny little body became contorted and then got strangely rigid.

I asked the nurse, “What is wrong with him, why is he contorting like that?”

She softly smiled and sweetly cooed at T.J. and then whispered to him in that gushing, high-pitched, baby tone of voice, “Baby T.J. is having his first bowel movement, good boy!”

What! We had just finished the tedious process of bathing and diapering him and now the suddenly annoying nurse was suggesting that once he finished this new business at hand, we then needed to start the lengthy process over one more time?

With twenty-six hours of grueling labor behind us, a rocky and lengthy transfer from an underequipped birthing facility, to a doctor approved exception to finally get into an overfilled hospital and get a room. Then frightfully ending with a rushed, critical, lifesaving emergency c-section when mom and baby went into peril. Doesn't she know that I have been on an intense, emotional rollercoaster ride, and have been awake for over a day and a half with no sleep?

Child birth is tough on a man!

I heard odd noises now gurgling and sputtering from baby’s backside. I felt his crisp blanket and freshly administered diaper now vigorously vibrating with the explosive invasion coming from his weensy bowels. Apparently urine was not the only thing that he was really holding in. As he finally finished taking his first poop, I would swear that I saw him smile and then giggle for the first time. The instantly dismissive nurse just rolled her loathing eyes and then blurted out that this was just how infants looked when they are experiencing bad gas pains. Gas? Oh great! Another smelly bodily function to look forward to with this kid. To this day I still think it was a smile and a giggle, I don’t care what that crusty old nurse said!

With all of the newness and wonderment of those first time events, I was totally unprepared for the shock of what came next. As I slowly and cautiously removed that first soiled diaper, what I witnessed is often talked about in the wiles of the Bolesky family legends even unto this day! It still amazes me even now! That first miniature diaper was thoroughly filled with the biggest mess that you have ever seen in your life! It appeared like thick black molasses. I knew that this could not be normal … could it!

Amazed by this quirky phenomenon, I then took the tiny diaper all filled with the black goo and I began a whirlwind tour around the room. I then went into the hallways showing it off to everyone within sight.

I passionately prompted the onlookers, “Look! Look! Look at T.J.’s poop; what unbelievably unique fecal material, have you ever seen anything like it in your whole life?”

Patient friends and entertained family who already knew that this was totally normal for an infant’s first pooh, politely smiled and then played along with my naïve excitement for this mysterious looking dodo. The scolding snotty nurse suddenly appeared and got up into my personal space. She was now forcefully lecturing me about the appropriate poop etiquette, and then curtly demanded to have the dirty diaper to do a proper disposing of it so as to not risk contaminating the sterile room. I just laughed and then told her that I wanted to preserve it and then treasure it as a keepsake of baby’s first poop. Everyone in the room chuckled; however, Nurse Cratchet was not entertained!

Yes, my carefree son T. J. was a classic prankster and those who were close to him had to be always on their guard from the constant barrage of his mildly mischievous, masterminded attempts to pull one over on us. Even worse, I am not sure that he ever truly found firm control of those smelly bodily functions, although they almost always seemed to strategically appear at exact moments when his bubbling, burping, biscuits were unfortunately rumbling and ripping near your flinching face!