A Mother's Humility

I try not to write much about the bodily functions that come along with raising a toddler, but I'm warning you now - this story is about poop and lots of it. I had an absolutely surreal experience on Friday and it's one that I hope I never have to live through again. It all starts with the fact that Caleb has been very congested for a while now. I took him to the doctor over a week ago. She wrote a prescription for an antibiotic, but suggested that I not have it filled unless he just didn't get any better for a while. Not only did he not get better, but he got worse. Rudy decided that we needed to be aggressive and start the antibiotics. I took the prescription to Walmart on Thursday night and we started it on Friday morning. The pharmacist warned me that it might be hard on Caleb's stomach. When I picked Caleb up from school on Friday, I was pleasantly surprised to find that he hadn't had any tummy troubles at all. On the way home, he told me his "fummy" hurt. When we got home, I put him on the potty, but he couldn't go. Rudy was straightening up the house in preparation for Mom and Mr.L's arrival, so I took Caleb with me to Walmart. I needed to get some flavoring put in the antibiotic because he had spit most of it out all over the place on Friday morning. Apparently, amoxiclav tastes pretty nasty. We're standing at the pharmacy waiting on them to flavor up the meds and Caleb gets a bad look on his face. That's when I got a whiff of him and knew we had a problem. I bent down and asked him if he needed to go potty and he said yes. I did a quick bottom pat to see if I was too late and sure enough, I was. By the time we got to the bathroom, he was a total mess. I got him in the stall and pulled his pants down only to find that he had actually had diarrhea. I hadn't thought to put a pull-up on him because he's been doing so great with potty training and we were only going to be gone for a short time. His little cotton briefs and his shorts were soaked. I threw his underpants in the trash and put his shorts in a bag. I sat on my knees in the bathroom floor at Walmart trying to figure out what in the world to do. I couldn't take him out of there naked but I also couldn't put his clothes back on him. My only hope was going to be a sympathetic mother who just happened to be in the bathroom at the same time. I opened the stall door and found my angel - a Walmart associate - even better than a sympathetic mother. I explained to her that my child had gotten sick and asked her if she would please go to the baby section to get some wipes and a pair of 2T shorts. She kindly did so and brought them back to me as quickly as she could. She also called maintenance to clean up the floor. I finally got Caleb cleaned up enough to put the new shorts on him. Maintenance still hadn't gotten there, so I used the wipes to clean up the floor as much as I could. I just couldn't bear to leave the mess for some unsuspecting person to find. I took Caleb to the sink and washed out his Crocs. (Thank Heaven for the washability of Crocs!) I carried my purse, the bag with Caleb's soiled shorts, the half-used box of wipes, the tag from the new pair of shorts and Caleb to pharmacy counter. I paid for the wipes, the shorts and the flavoring in the medicine and got out of there as quickly as I could. I was completely exasperated. I called Rudy and told him that we were on our way home and gave him a brief synopsis of what had happened. Mom and Mr.L. were already here when we got home. I put Caleb straight in the bathtub, put clean clothes on him, then changed my clothes and scrubbed my arms and hands until they were almost raw. My lessons have been learned. Lesson one: when Caleb says his "fummy" hurts, don't take him anywhere until after he has used the bathroom. Lesson two: we still need pull-ups in public places. Lesson three: there is nothing more humbling than sitting on your knees, cleaning the bathroom floor at Walmart with baby wipes.