Clearly I lost my owner's manual

Today I was talking to Amy about the escapades of potty training her three year old. I've also heard from my friend Laura that this is quite a big challenge. To protect the innocent, I won't go into the details of their ordeals, but after that phone call I sat there thinking how lucky I am that Jake is still in diapers. I am just not ready to deal with the mental torture of telling a toddler to do his business in a big boy potty. And then having them refuse.

So, not an hour later, I had to change little mister's diaper. First of all I made the mistake of telling him that's what I was going to do. Because as soon as I said the words, he grabbed his butt and made a bee line out the bedroom door. This child hates having his diaper changed. I just don't get it. He starts screaming as soon as you make a move to lay him on his back. Once you get him there, he starts the full body kicking. Let's just say that I need some sort of athletic equipment to protect parts of my body when he starts up with the kicking. Do they make jock straps for ladies?

Diaper changes usually involve a lot of kicking, crying, twisting, trying to get up and run away, hitting the diaper and trying to rip it from his body. I swear, sometimes I just have to tell Mike to knock it off already and get the baby changed.

Seriously, what is the big deal? There are not many things in life I know for certain, but I know this. If someday I am ever walking around with a droopy, wet, poopy diaper, please God, let someone change me! Is this already some kind of control issue? Or could he just hate to be laying on his back? I have resorted to changing wet diapers while he's standing up or on the move, but clearly this could be a dangerous approach to changing the poopy ones. I estimate that by the time Jake is potty trained we will have spent somewhere between four and five thousand dollars on diapers. It just seems like we should be able to get some sort of joy out of that kind of an investment.