This post, gentle reader, shall be a little more graphic still. Therefore, if you have no interest in reading about the joys of caring for a circumcision site (or two), you might want to skip this.
The night started very smoothly, with the boys still riding the high of the post-surgery tylenol, added to the anesthetic and the wine. With some trepidation we waited for the effects to wear off.
As the hours wore on, the boys fussed perhaps a bit more, but in general did not show much discomfort. Finally, it was time to feed them, which included changing the diaper. At diaper removal we were treated to the site of a newly circumcised penis (pictures available on line, I am sure). It looked scary enough, still partly swollen from the anesthetic (of which we were warned). There was no delaying it any further, we had to provide site care. The aforementioned care consists of two parts, per received instructions:
1. Pull on the remaining skin gently toward the body to avoid adhesion of skin to head of penis. Mercifully, we were instructed to skip this step the first time. Wise decision, as doing that required some courage.
2. Applying enough Vaseline to cover the head and the surgery site completely, to avoid adhesion to the diaper.
We decided to start with Benny, his extra-calm resulting in him being volunteered to be the test subject. We stilled our nerves and went after step 2. Have you ever tried to fashion a condom out of Vaseline? Have you ever tried to fashion anything out of Vaseline? Mom and I, jaws clenched, determination on our foreheads and sweat down my back (we assume mom remained cool under pressure), went at it. I held the legs, mom sculpted. Several tense minutes and two teaspoons of Vaseline later, we had something that looked OK. We applied the diaper, at which point Benny moved, and the fruits of our sticky labors were all over the diaper. We made another sculpture, closed the diaper, and resolved not to look. As Benny fed, we proceeded to Zev, who pleasantly surprised us by making no noise at all, as long as his core was covered. In fact, here credit goes to my parents for coming up with the procedure for changing diapers and clothing: keep something over whatever part of baby is not being worked on, especially chest and belly, and they will be OK with it. The boys certainly seem to agree.
The first post-op feeding was done. Mom agreed to help with the sculpting job for the midnight, Alla-and-I-only, feeding as we all took a break.
The second time around it became only more evident that the main outcome was an effective transfer of Vaseline onto diaper, via pee-pee. At that point I had a rare moment of engineering inspiration. Instead of trying to sculpt out of Vaseline, I decided to cover the entire front of diaper, thus preventing sticking. A diaper can be Vaselined in advance, with the only "on-baby" part remaining is creating a thin coat of Vaseline around the penis head with a cotton swab to prevent adhesion of head to skin of the belly, unlikely as that maybe. The procedure works like a charm. Patent may be pending, but anyone reading this is welcome to the procedure as payment for reading these self-serving ramblings. The only downside of the process is that a diaper coated with Vaseline looses a lot of their absorbing properties, resulting in dramatically more wetting of outfits and swaddling blankets. We figured that to be a small price to pay for not having to play Michelangelo with Vaseline sixteen times a day. We have used the procedure every feeding/changing for nearly 24 hours now, and intend to continue. Even though we are periodically amazed how someone so small can wet through a (reduced capacity) diaper, shirt, outfit, two swaddling blankets, and onto the mattress sheet.
Step 1 of surgery site care requires a bit of courage to perform the first time, but the tiny movement, or my best interpretation of it, does eventually get done with no site of blood, no extra-protestation from the boys, no light-headedness for me, and, quite likely, with no effect whatsoever.
The boys do continue to learn. They recently discovered the "two step pee" technique, of which we were warned at the hospital. Also known as 'delayed peeing'. Goes as follows: they let us change them patiently, and as we are almost done putting on a new diaper, they let out a terrific stream, getting the shirt, the outfit, one of us, and some of the surrounding area.
The hilarity truly reached a peak for Alla and I somewhere between 2 and 4 am last night. We were awake, but our mental state was, well, as expected. Picture this, my patient reader:
A darkened room. Few sounds from outside, plus our whispered voices. Zev sleeps peacefully in the crib, while Benjamin quietly fusses while being changed. The light is provided by a bright LED light, pointed up, so it reflects nicely off the wall down on the changing area, while letting Zev sleep mostly undisturbed.
The new diaper is Vaselined and staged. While I turn to dry my hands, Alla says: "Oh, this looks very wet!" And the diaper flies into the 'Diaper Champ' (ingenious odor-containment device for diaper disposal. Thank you, S and R!). Diaper two is prepared. As I am finishing the job, I notice that the diaper looked a bit weird all along. Mostly because I was applying Vaseline to the wrong end of the diaper. Diaper two follows diaper one. Diaper three is prepared, correctly this time. As I am about to slide it under Ben Vaseline-first, Alla stops me: "Vaseline goes on the pee-pee, honey." As we quietly remark on challenges of applying diapers, Ben produces a golden stream that arks good 15 inches up, over his head, somewhere into the darkness, beyond the cone of pale light. The old diaper is long gone. I have nothing in my hands to stop the stream with. Two dozen or so blankets on the shelf below the baby may as well have been located on the Moon. We stare at the perfect golden parabola and just giggle. After about seven seconds of stupor, I stop the stream with my hands, still giggling, and try to contain the damage to the immediate disaster area.
Shortly after the babies are cleaned,Vaselined, fed, and sleeping; a few wet things are replaced and we head off to bed, me still smirking periodically at the two of us, just standing there and watching Ben demonstrate perfect parabolic motion in Earth's gravitational field.
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