Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Motherhood… NAILING IT.

When I started my blog about my journey in motherhood, I thought I would have plenty of time to keep up with it.  Because moms have an endless amount of time, said NO ONE EVER.  So the fact that this blog post should have actually been written 4 months ago when the incident occurred, will probably be a common trend. 

To set the stage for this particular story, Zoe was about 6 months old.  It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and the weather was amazing.  Logan decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather by doing some much needed yard work while I played with Zoe.  We had a sweet morning of playing before I was going to meet some girls for brunch.  The morning was going flawless.  Zoe woke up happy, played, ate her lunch and even had a morning poop all before I needed to get dressed for the day.  She has been like this for weeks now.  From sleeping through the night, eating great and even having regular ‘movements’, Zoe has become very predictable. 

I decided to take advantage of this new stage with Zoe.  I got dressed and loaded Zoe up in her car seat to head out the door.  I was only going to be gone for a few hours so I thought instead of loading up her huge diaper bag, I would be cool mom and throw a diaper, pacifier and burp cloth in my purse and call it a day.  I’m a pro now right?  6 month veteran… I’ve got this.  I was cocky. 

We get to the restaurant and Zoe is already asleep for her morning nap when we get there.  Even better.  I can enjoy a nice quiet brunch to catch up with the ladies.  We decided to split a pitcher of sangria and order brunch.  I just started to enjoy my first glass and get the gossip session started when Zoe wakes up really fussy.  She is crying and I am beginning to get embarrassed.  (I suffer from extreme embarrassment when Zoe is loud in public places because I HATED listening to it so much when I was pre-baby.  I always assume every person in the room is staring at me and saying in their heads, take that baby outside, now.)  I pick her up to shush her when I feel something on my hand.  So I grab my purse and excuse myself so that I can ‘calm her down’ outside.  The truth is… I knew I was in trouble. 

I pop open the trunk of my car and lay Zoe down and discover that my thought was correct.  We have a blowout situation on our hands.  No problem… I have a diaper and wipes in my purse.  I can fix this.  I take off her pants which are covered on the inside with poop.  I unbutton her onesie which is also covered to remove the diaper.  I open up my packs of wipes and begin damage control.  That’s when my day quickly unraveled.  One.  One single wipe in my pack.  I didn’t refill it before I left and here I am dealing with the Mt. Everest of poops with only one wipe.  Not only that, but I do not have any clothes to change her into. 

Time to get creative.  First I strategically used the one wipe.  Then I went into my glove box and found some old Starbucks napkins.  That wasn’t enough.  So then I used her burp cloth to get as much as I could before putting on a fresh diaper.  She still has poop on her legs and in various other spots, but it is better than nothing.  This is the part of the story where you think I just hop in my car and drive home and text them on the way that I’ll pay them back later for the food I didn’t eat and the sangria I left melting at the table right? 

Nope.  That is what a normal person would do.  But dang it, I wanted adult conversation and to finish my drink.  So what did I do?  I wrapped my baby covered in crap with her blanket to hide the evidence on the bottom half of her body, and head back into the restaurant like everything was normal.  I left the evidence of the explosion in the trunk of my car and I went back inside to finish my Sangria.  MOTHER OF THE YEAR.  Zoe laid in her car seat while I scarfed down my food, sucked down my drink and quickly asked for the check.  My friends kept offering to hold her but I insisted that she should stay in her seat.  I tried to dodge the real reason as much as I could so not to draw attention to myself. 

Even though I hate to waste it, half of that pitcher remained untouched because I didn’t want to stay longer than I needed to.  I quickly said my goodbyes and put Zoe in the car to drive home.  As you can imagine, my car STUNK.  We had to drive home with all the windows rolled down until I could get her to the house and bath her and put on some clean clothes.  End of story, right?  Wrong.  I get home and am completely frazzled by what happened to see Logan taking his post yard work nap on the couch.  I head straight to Zoe’s room to clean her up and change her.  I still can’t stop smelling poop.  Maybe it’s on me and I didn’t know.  I wash my hands completely and change clothes just in case.  Why do I still smell it?  Oh, that’s why… while I was gone and Logan was sleeping peacefully, our dog ate something and now has had diarrhea ALL OVER our brown living room rug.  I mean EVERYWHERE. 

Sweet Zoe at 6 Months
I wake Logan up, show him the dog’s mess and hand him Zoe and told him to deal with it.  Momma needs a minute to decompress.  So I go on the patio, stick my feet in the pool and just start laughing.  Who the hell did I think I was going with only a diaper in my purse?  You aren’t nailing this mom thing at all.  You are at amateur status at best.  You should be thanking God on a daily basis that your baby has survived.  Never get cocky again!


So what is the lesson that I learned in all of this?  I now keep an emergency diaper bag in my car AT ALL TIMES.  It is stocked with extra clothes, diapers, wipes, burp clothes, formula, toys, etc.  You name it – it is in this bag.  That way, if I want to look like I am cool, put together mom with a baby on my hip holding nothing but a little clutch and Zoe has a surprise moment like this, I can quietly excuse myself to the car and will be prepared for any situation that comes up.  I also ALWAYS have plastic bags in my car so that I can wrap up all of the soiled items and easily dispose of it instead of driving in the stench of failure on my drive home.  

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