The Ozmerican Life

So here it is...a great story from Deb:

I have 40+ nieces and nephews, along with 5+ GREAT nieces and nephews (well, actually they are all great, but you get the picture). Oddly enough, the little peeps we see most often aren’t actually related to us – they belong to our great friends Karen & Nathan. It helps that they live close by, whereas our related crew are spread out all over the world.

Anyway, Quaid, Ava, Jentzen & Keira are frequent beneficiaries of our “Rent-a-Kid” program. For the uninformed, the Rent-a-Kid program is like a club for those who don’t have their own kids ~ borrow someone else’s and then send them home. Actually, we made that up.

One particular day about 1 ½ years ago, RW and I instituted the Rent-a-Kid program for the afternoon, and took Quaid (then 3), Ava (then 2), and Jentzen (then not quite 1) to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. We figured that the kids LOVE to “stroller”, and we’d been wanting to go there and walk around for quite some time.

All went well. The kids DID love to “stroller”, although they did get a little irritated that RW ate most of their cheese sticks and Cheerios (note to self: Feed RW BEFORE GOING OUT). I think that RW was convinced that they were too young to notice. Guess what? They were decidedly OLD ENOUGH TO NOTICE. Even little Jentzen.

Now, do you happen to remember when your kids were 3, 2, & 1? Quaid was pretty on top of things, but Ava was still solidly in the midst of potty-training. We did make several stops at the bathrooms along the paths to take the 2 older ones potty. All seemed to be fine. Fine, that is, until we got back to the parking lot. I started smelling something…not quite right.

ME: “Ava, did you go poopies?”

AVA: [stares up at me real innocently]

ME: “I think you DID! Let me find the diaper bag and we can change your Pull-Up.”

I started digging around in the car looking for Ava’s Pull-Ups and wipes. Meanwhile, RW was trying his best to look extremely busy with the 2 boys (yeah. I wasn’t convinced.) All of the sudden I hear RW in quite the panic:

RW: “AVA! LEAVE THEM ON, LEAVE THEM ON!”

I yanked my head out of the car (banging it in the process) and turned around. Ava, trying to be helpful, was in the process of taking off her Pull-Up. The Pull-Up that had experienced a huge blow-out. The Pull-Up was seriously… USED. And heavy. And odiferous (is that a word?). And then it happened. RW & I both lunged for her, but we were too slow. She started using her FEET to get the Pull-Up off. Now her butt, legs AND feet had poop all over them.

By this time, RW was yelling at me to DO SOMETHING. I was doffing around trying to find the wipes. They weren’t there. They weren’t anywhere. I grabbed the phone and called Karen:

Karen: “Yeeeessss? Are you…”

ME: [cutter her off] “WHERE ARE THE WIPES?”

Karen: [slightly curious] “In the diaper bag.”

ME: “NO THEY AREN’T! WHERE IN THE DIAPER BAG I CAN’T FIND THEM I NEED THEM RIGHT NOW THEY BETTER BE IN THERE WE HAVE A POOP EMERGENCY!!!!”

Karen: [decidedly more curious - I don’t ever call her in a panic] “Deb [giggling], calm down. They are in the black diaper bag in the short pocket on the side. The one with the zipper.” [I think at this point she was trying hard not to really laugh]

ME: “FOUND THEM GOTTA GO.” Click.

By this time, precious moments have gone by. Moments in which a 2 year old cannot stand still, no matter what the issue was. I yanked my head out of the car again, and see RW striding away from the car holding ½ naked Ava out in front of him.

ME: “What are you DOING?” [trying to ignore the flabbergasted stares from the little old ladies getting into their car…]

RW: “I’m going to WASH HER OFF”

I look in the direction that RW was headed, and realized what he was about to do. He was heading for the automatic sprinkler system. Not kidding. He was going to hold that little Ava butt over those lawn sprinklers and clean ‘er up. Just think about that for a moment.

ME: [yelling] “But I FOUND the wipes!” [by this time the old ladies were about to have a stroke]

RW (thankfully) turned around and came back to the car. By this time poor Ava needed a full body cleaning. She had scratched her rear-end, so now we had poop on her butt, her legs, her feet AND hands.

We cleaned her up and stopped to catch our breath. The Rent-a-Kid program had taken a turn for the worse. We got everyone strapped into the car and pulled out of the parking spot.

Ava: “Deb, I went poop, didn’t I? And I saw a squirrel!”

ME: “Yes, Ava. Yes you did. And you can thank me for saving you from the automatic, industrial-sized lawn sprinkler.

Deb Hardison