Ruby has been somewhat cold toward me since I spent two of the past three weekends away. The first was a business trip that took me to the desert. The second was…well, I’ve already gone on and on about the place I won’t mention again, but in case you’re new here, it sounds like man can disco. Aside from the effusive greetings I received upon my return each time, the child has been extremely daddy-centric, not permitting me to so much as change a diaper (which I can’t say I mind) or read a book (I mind this quite a bit).

On Tuesday night, however, it appeared we had a breakthrough. Sam was at the bar for Boys Night and Ruby had no choice but to accept assistance from me when she awoke at 10:30pm. I went to her when she cried out for Sam. She was turned around in her bed, laying on her tummy, and telling me that she had pee-pee. I lifted her to my arms and softly explained that, she needn’t worry: I would change her diaper and I would do it as well as her father. Maybe even better.

She pulled back from me, put one hand on each of my cheeks and looked me sleepily in the eye, which was when my heart exploded into a giant, sizzling firework. She ran her left hand gently across my lips, wrapped both arms around my neck and put her head on my shoulder. I was overdosing on love. I could have wept. I held her for a bit, swaying back-and-forth, inhaling her, drawing out the moment for as long as I could, knowing there would likely be another dry-spell to follow. If this is what I get, I thought to myself, it’s worth an entire month of being shunned.

I laid her on her changing table.
I removed her pajama bottoms.
I opened her diaper.

And then Ruby reached her left arm in my direction and said, “Poophand, mama.”

Her fingers were caked in the stuff. And—as you might now be realizing as I was at that moment—so was my upper lip. Which explained the extremely pungent shit smell I was enduring.

I had a total and complete internal freak-out. Had Sam been home, it would have been much less internal. So anti-internal that our neighbors would, in all probability, have called the cops. But since I was alone and didn’t wish to alarm my child or give her some life-altering mother/fecal complex, I put on my game face. I discretely wiped my lips with the sleeve of my shirt and cleaned the kid, while outwardly exhibiting Jackie Onassis-worthy grace and composure. On the inside, I was screaming Ewww!Ewww!Ewww! This is NOT my fucking life! Ohmygod! Ewwww!

I put Ruby back to bed and sprinted for the bathroom to find more of her delirious finger painting already dried on my cheek. I gagged. Twice. I turned the faucet to eleven so the water would get scalding hot, stripped off my shirt and threw it as hard as I could to the floor. I gagged again. I squeezed half a bottle of facial scrub into my hand and then washed as rigorously as if I were cleaning out a burn wound. I’m fairly certain I was whimpering throughout this scene and shaking my head in disbelief, though I honestly don’t remember any sound.

When I was all cleaned up, I looked in the mirror and saw a half-naked woman I barely recognized. She shook her head and muttered, “I never knew you had it in you.”