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19th July 2019
11:00am BST

Stage 1: Optimism
I have located the changing facilities. I have assembled an arsenal of distractions ranging from toy cars and rice cakes to more improvised items like a discarded bottle cap and my house keys. I am at peak physical condition to pin and successfully change my toddler who has been capable of thwarting my nappy-changing efforts since day 2. I can do this...
Stage 2: Mortification
The screaming has hit a pitch so loud that the queue of people waiting outside the cubicle is debating whether to call social services. Inside the cubicle, I am deeply embarrassed, and the shit is literally hitting the fan. The arsenal of distractions have been flung to the floor, and there is now excrement on my house keys. The Child is "helping" by wiping his own bum with a rice cake. It's time for reinforcements.
Stage 3: A cry for help
Locate a nearby human, anyone who has the use of their limbs will do and enlist their help to restrain the child. If you are completely alone (and preferably in the privacy of your own home for this manoeuvre) you can actually use your legs as a blockade to keep the child's "help" at bay.
Stage 4: Grim determination
This is the point at which all niceties; the cooing, the singing of songs and proffering of distractions go out the window in a bid to end this thing. Get the head down and get that nappy on at all costs because any minute now...
Stage 5: A sense of accomplishment tinged with regret
... Yep there it is, The Face Wee. Somehow I never get the nappy closed in time. At the age he's at now he's practically taking aim with the thing. Finally, the nappy's on, the battle has been won at least for now, but the feeling of accomplishment always comes with a sense of regret: Why does it have to be so hard? "I'm trying to help you," I say to his retreating back as he toddles off on another great adventure while I'm left covered in wee, nursing my wounds.
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