Travel and Diapers

Some people (mostly men) like to get from point A to point B in record time. Stopping for bathroom breaks, soda and food runs are just not allowed. In our family that is not the case. I seem to have the dueling "tooters" in the backseat when we travel so it seems as though we stop more than we travel.

On our recent trip home to FL from KY I had a bathroom experience to top all others. We had just returned to the interstate after stopping to change Jeffrey's "big boy pants" and were ready to make some progress in our travels. Suddenly, out of the blue Jeffrey said, "Mommy, I poopied!" Arggghhhhh, I asked him if he was telling the truth and he said, "Yes mommy, I poopied a lot!" I saw an upcoming exit with a McDonald's and decided that was a good place to pull over. We stopped, I unloaded the boys and took them to the bathroom for one more pants/diaper change while mom went to order some Coke for the two adults.

The boys and I went into the large stall with the diaper changing table where I discovered Jeffrey had NOT poopied but simply had A LOT of gas.

Geesh, well that was a waste of time!

Oh well, I thought to myself, I will go ahead and change Bubba just to be on the safe side. I pulled down the changing table mounted on the wall to find that it was clearly hung by someone without children. No parent would mount that in a place where the child's feet were hanging over the toilet. I immediately removed his shoes as I had a vision of me fishing Thomas the Train Crocks out of the water.

I took his pants off and began to remove his diaper when I was hit with the smell. Up until that point I had not smelled anything coming from this dear sweet child. Now I smelled it. Jeffrey spoke up and said, "I told you there was poopie!" Oh was there ever poopie. My reaction was one that I was unable to hold in. As if I were on auto pilot I just blurted out, "Oh dear me!" as loud as I could. At that point I heard the lady in the stall next to us snicker. Bubba started to laugh as if to say, "mommy I gave you a present".

I continued on with my duty as a mother when Jeffrey said, "Mommy I want to see." He stepped around me and looked then suddenly began to gasp. He yelled, "I DON'T WANT TO LOOK! I DON'T WANT TO LOOK! I DON'T SEE THAT! I DON'T SEE THAT!"

Now the lady in the stall next to us was full out laughing. No more hiding the snickers, she was belly laughing.

Jeffrey continued on, "OH MOMMY! THAT IS SO GROSS! IT IS HORRIBLE! BUBBA HOW CAN YOU DO THAT IN YOUR PANTS?"

Now please let me fill you in on a little secret. I have a horrible gag reflex that EVERYONE said would go away when I had my own kids. Well, they were all wrong. That gag reflex did not go away and in fact, I think it got stronger. While Jeffrey is yelling at the top of his lungs I'm standing there gagging my brains out. To round out the whole experience Bubba began making farting noises with his mouth. I don't even want to know what it sounded like to the woman next to us but I'm sure our musical number was one she won't soon forget. I feel we must have sounded something like this, "EWW EWW, GAG GAG, FART FART!" Needless to say, we made an impression on that poor woman.

As we finished up the job I gathered our things and tried to make a quick exit however upon opening the door I found a small audience had gathered. The two stall idea for a McDonald's on the interstate was probably not the best laid out plan. Especially when one is taken up with the musical stylings of Claycomb, Claycomb, and Claycomb and the other is taken by a woman being entertained by said group. I had a small round of applause when we stepped out and a woman leaned into me and said, you are a good mama. I don't quite know what she was going for but I took the compliment, washed my hands and quickly exited the building.

When we got into the car, I was laughing so hard at the whole situation that I couldn't even tell mom the whole story. I just knew that we had made a lasting impression on several people that day. And so we went on our journey and made it home safe and sound.