You must do the things you think you cannot do.
~
Eleanor Roosevelt

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Some days are like that

My day started innocently enough. I got up early, ran a decent 5.2 miles, loaded up the kids and delivered Jake to his placement testing/advising appointment at FCC - all by 8:30 am.

The plan was to entertain the kids in Frederick until it was time to pick up Jake. Last week we visited the Visitor's Center in Frederick and discovered they have a scavenger hunt for kids that correlates to a walking tour for grown ups. It has fun things like noting what the fence in front of the Trail Mansion is made of (wrought iron, if you're wondering).  You have to walk a couple of miles and answer 23 questions so we realized  we wouldn't be able to do it all in one trip.

I figured today we could answer a few scavenger hunt questions and then play at  the park until Jake was done. So we started out walking probably a mile or more doing the scavenger hunt and then headed to the park. Baker Park has two playgrounds that are a little more than a quarter mile apart. We went to the first playground and the kids didn't like it as much so they asked if we could walk to the other playground.

On the way there Shane had to pee but he wouldn't go in the nasty porto potty so we found a bush for him to hide behind. We get to the other playground, play for maybe 5 minutes and everyone is hungry. Back to the car. Eat. Back to the playground.

Maybe 10 minutes later my phone rings, and it's Jake can I come and talk with his advisor about his test scores and class schedule. Round up the kids again and head back to the car.

I find my way to his advisor's office - who happens to be a good friend of ours - and we start chatting about test scores, etc. Shane has to go potty again so I asked Jake to take him thinking he just needed to pee. A few minutes later Jake comes in and says Shane needs me because he pooped in his pants. Lovely.

Even more lovely is the realization that my 4 y/o is by himself in a public men's room on a college campus. Deep breath in.  Exhale. Relax.

I tap on the door to be sure no one else is in there before walking in and find that Shane has locked himself in the stall and he's really upset about having poop in his underpants so he won't unlock the stall.

I'm sure you're guessing what happened next. Tracy, the queen of bathroom germaphobia, had to crawl under the stall door to save my crying baby. I haven't decided if I'm going to burn the clothes I had on or just bleach them to death.

Shane wouldn't let me put his Thomas the Tank Engine underpants in the trash so I rolled them into a stack of papertowels and put them in my purse. Yes, I walked around today with poopy underpants in my purse. If that doesn't say love, I don't know what does. :)

Thankfully only some days are like that. If they all were, I might hide under the bed and not come out.

4 comments:

Debra said...

At least my similar experience happened at Focus on the Family. I'm not quite as freaked about the alone in a restroom thing there...

Glad all is well though.

Becca said...

you are an amazing mama. I don't know if I could do that. but reading about your day made me smile. :-)

*~*~* Tracy said...

Debra,
You're right; I don't think I would have been too upset if we had been some place like Focus on the Family.

I'm glad your little person was ok, too!

*~*~* Tracy said...

Becca,
Thank you for your encouragment! I definitely didn't feel amazing while crawling on the bathroom floor...well maybe amazingly gross.
I'm grateful for grace for the moment! If I had started the day knowing what was in store, I probably would have stayed under the covers. :)

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