I'm just going to warn you right here, right now, this post is all about poop. Humiliation and poop. If such things are offensive to your delicate sensitivities (what on earth are you doing here?), you'll need to move along now.
Something you might not know about me is that in real life, on the other side of that screen, I actually get embarrassed quite easily. You wouldn't guess that, I'm sure, considering that I have discussed everything from cloth pads to my monthly cycles (and many other mildly embarrassing topics) here, but it's true. It doesn't take much at all to make me blush, and so the events that have transpired in the past few hours have left me nearly catatonic and in hiding in the corners of my own home.
Why share it publicly? Because this, my friends, this is a cautionary tale. It is a story - an absolutely true account - that serves to remind you that when one has a child still mostly in diapers, no matter how many times or how often the potty is used at home, one must never, never, ever ever ever leave the house without a back-up diaper.
This story begins with AJ. Of course it does, because even on Dacey's most outrageous days, she's got nothin' on a typical day with Aliza Joy. In the past week, AJ has decided to learn the potty. She'll be twenty-two months old next week, and this step towards independence is entirely her idea. I don't even actually practice potty "training" (that's another post for another day when I'm not contemplating a name change and plastic surgery) (and considering that I contemplate plastic surgery daily, it could be a while before that post gets written), but I've been trying to just go with her sudden interest and determination to use the potty all the time, every time. Dacey did not potty learn until she was nearly three, so the thought of impending freedom from diapering was hard to resist.
So within the first five minutes of waking this morning, AJ told me she needed to poop. She went to the little potty and poop she did! And continued to do this, I kid you not, every fifteen to twenty minutes. She would produce a little tiny poop, triumphantly dump the contents into the big potty, and stand waving joyously over the swirling waters saying, "Bye bye poopie!"
I had to make a quick trip to the library, and it had to be done today. I've been leading the baby/toddler story time at the library on Wednesday mornings this summer, and Last Minute Lucy that I am, I still had not chosen the story for tomorrow. A series of events put us running behind, so it wasn't until I pulled out of the driveway that I realized I hadn't grabbed an extra diapers and wipes. Oh well, she's been pooping all morning. What are the odds?
The odds? The odds? Were not in my favor today, friends.
So we picked out a nice little stack of books, and the girls played with puzzles and trains while I tootled around on the card catalog computer. (Or whatever that new-fangled book-looker-upper-thang is called these days.) It wasn't too long before I realized AJ had pooped again - in her diaper. The only diaper I had on me.
As I took her to the bathroom to change her, I debated about what to do. Do I just leave immediately with no stack of books, no plan for tomorrow? Do I just chance it for a few minutes - just long enough to check out the books and then high-tail it for home? It was a classic Sliding Doors moment. I went through the door only idiots walk through - the Door of the Diaperless Toddler.
As we walked back out into the library, I saw that a family of five had come in and lined up at the check-out counter to get library cards. Each one needed one. Okay. So we'll hang out here in the kids' section for a few minutes while we wait. Maybe it was thirty seconds, maybe it was three minutes. I couldn't tell you how long in actual time increments we stood there, but I can tell you this:
It was exactly long enough for AJ to let loose with a week's worth of buried treasure that slid quickly and efficiently right down her pant leg and piled up there on the floor of the public library.
I wanted to die. I wanted to run away. I wanted to run away to a quick, painless death. But I couldn't because if I did, I know she would have started playing in it. What transpired next is the part that is so humiliating, I'm still not able to put words to it. Hurried trips back and forth to the bathroom with AJ tucked under my arm, Dacey standing in the children's section loudly declaring, "oooooooooooh, that poop STINKS," glares from the library staff . . . Awful. Just awful.
You either laugh or you cry, right? Well, I cried all the way home, and then some more once we got home. When Kyle came home at lunch, I moved forward to the laugh-cry. I haven't cried while writing this, but I am surely not to the point of laughing. Maybe in a year or two, I'll read over this and giggle, but I'm not there yet.
The worst part is I have to go back there in the morning - not even allowing 24 hours to expunge a little of the memory of The Poop Incident from the minds of the library staff. Thank goodness they have a back door and thank goodness the children's librarian is also AJ's Sunday School teacher and so she knows a little bit of what it means to experience Aliza.
And you'll notice, won't you, that there is no picture to illustrate this story. Posting about poop is a time-honored tradition in the Sorority of Mommy Bloggers, but taking the time to grab my phone to snap a picture of the mess would have definitely earned me a public excommunication from the library. Plus, that's just gross.
So go ahead. Poke fun. Laugh it up. Just don't forget the lesson to be learned here: when the question "what's the worst that could happen?" arises, just remember the answer is always "poop on the library floor." Because that's exactly what could happen.
