December 21, 2:40pm. My wife left for work, and we’ve begun. This will be the first time I’ve been alone with Madison for more than about an hour. I’m excited for the experience…but also fairly terrified and ignorant of what exactly it will entail.

We’ve been hanging out on the couch having happy time for a bit, but as my wife leaves Maddie starts getting fussy. As it turns out, our baby loves music. As we have years of terrible kids songs in front of us, and the baby doesn’t really have so much to say about it, we get to pick the music we like. For this, the Amazon Echo has been spectacular (cheap plug). Turns out, Maddie is a fan of Jaimie Cullum and Van Morrison…but over Thanksgiving my sister realized that the baby really likes Paul Simon…because duh.

I digress, the baby is getting fussy so I ask Alexa to play our Paul Simon pandora station as I get up to “dance” (read: walk and rock) with the baby – appropriately Crosby Stills Nash and Young’s “Teach Your Children” comes on and I can’t help but to think how the fates aligned and what a moment this is.

It had been about 3 and a half minutes since my wife had left the house. It was at this point I felt it – the blowout. For any non-parents, a blow-out is when your beautiful little child unleashes a poop so massive that it cannot be contained by any of man’s constructs, let alone the meager diaper you have wrapped around them. This does not simply require a diaper change, but a full wardrobe change, and often times a bath. Luckily this did not require a bath, just diaper (and a diaper it was) and full wardrobe.

It’s at this point that I realize I’ve never actually fully dressed Maddie on my own, and apparently she realized this as well, because this is when the hysterics began. With babies there’s the “I can’t make any other noises so I’m going to cry” and then there’s the real crying…this was the latter, and then some. After an unclear amount of time of fairly scarring screaming and commotion (scarring for me way more than she), Maddie was now dressed and merely whimpering. Appropriately again, Alexa played us “Here Comes the Sun” and Maddie relaxed, actually closing her eyes and dozing off.

Now here we sit on the couch, Maddie sleeping on my chest for the moment, and all is well.

It’s been 30 minutes since my wife left the house.