Center Court: Mr. Clean and the LockMESS Monster

The differences between Brooks and Carson are astonishing at times. Most of us know that Brooks is a little OCD about being clean. Ok, let me rephrase that. He's a lot OCD about about one thing being clean. His hands! He doesn't like for his hands to be dirty from eating food or having touched something messy. He never touches anything with his dirty hand and will only use his clean hand to do things with. He will ask me to wipe his hands off all the time. I might have encouraged this behavior b/c after he started eating solids I was always wiping his hands and face and it continued on. I'm sure my saying "Don't touch that with your nasty hands!," and "Ahh look at the mess you made!" didn't help any. So he feels a need to be clean.

C on the other hand could care less about being clean. I think he likes the mess and is happiest sometimes when very dirty. My examples:

Everytime, and I mean everytime, C eats, he gets it EVERYWHERE! All over his face, hands, arms, feet, legs, the high chair/bumbo seat, both bibs (there is always one underneath his waterproof one for extra protection), table, floor and clothing. Sometimes he even gets it in his hair. He needs a full hose down after every meal, and it's only getting worse. Some will drop from his mouth onto his bib and his immediate reaction is to pull the bib up to his face and smear it. It happens so fast I don't have a chance to scrape it with his spoon or a paper towel. B of course, was not messy like this.

WARNING: If you're a clean freak, germ-a-phobe , or just feel nauseated at the thought of really messy things (like baby poop) you do not need to read ahead. Just scroll down to the cute pics of C. You have been warned!

The other mess he had been making lately is with poop. I never had this problem with B. C will poop...half the time it stays secure in his diaper, and other times it goes up his back. Most moms I know have had this problem occasionally. Well, he'll get going in his jumper and get so excited and out it comes! So we go to change him and as I am opening his diaper he immediately puts his hands down there and grabs the poop! He has it all over his hand, so then I grab it so he won't get on anything else, but that requires me to drop his bottom half. I wipe his hands, but then the table and his bottom still need to be wiped (we usually go through about 8-10 wipes in this process). He still somehow manages to get it on his sleeve, bib, shirt, the wall, changing mat and pat. And me as well :( I have tried distracting him with toys. If he's holding a toy and chewing on something, he won't grab his poop, right? Wrong. He'll play up until the diaper comes off, then's its grabbing time! SUPER gross!

I guess I got spoiled with B. I'm seeing what boys are all about now. B is a small minority and C is the majority. Some of you probably aren't too shocked by this, but I am. It's all new to me! I posted some pics below...they aren't very messy ones (I tend to forget to take pics of the really messy ones) and don't worry, there are no poopy ones HA!