This will have to be a short post, because there's only so much time in between explosions here and I have to conserve my energy. It takes a lot out of me to hold my breath for 10 minutes at a stretch, change a diaper from arm's length, and then wash everything in sight.

Nobody needs me to describe the minutiae. The bottom (ha) line is, I'm waiting another 7 minutes for the pediatrician to open so that we can get an appointment to find out if Jacob's ventures into a realm which starts with "D" and rhymes with "Hiya, Rhea!" have been assertive enough to make him dehydrated.

Willem, Jacob and I were up from 3:00-4:30 last night dealing with back-to-back explosive - literally, explosive - situations. I've had an accumulative four and a half years of diaper-change experience, and I have never seen anything like this. It was horrible. And poor sleepy, poopy, grumpy, dopey (but not happy, bashful or doc) Jacob was such a trouper through it all, just hanging in there and allowing the inevitable dignity-less circumstances which attend middle-of-the-night explosions.

By now we're up to five Major Incidents with several Minor Skirmishes along the outskirts. But, I'll have you know, the most recent engagement was at least a draw, if not a clear victory by Mama, because I was able to put him back into the same clothes at the end of it all.

Abraham Maslow had this theory that we all have a set order in which we address basic human needs, that forms a pyramid. He says that, no matter how evolved we might be, when the life stresses pile up, we return to the most basic needs and address those before we can move up to less critical things like acquisition of property (no Christmas shopping happening today, that's for darn sure), morality (charity breakfast at Emily's school? Not for us! Though we may send Emily and Willem to try and avoid penalizing her for her brother's, how do you say, mishaps) or sexual intimacy (just, no). Instead we all get very focused on the very bottom of that pyramid, especially that little word "excretion" over there on the right.

We'll aim for homeostasis around lunchtime, maybe.