Drop cloths, elbow length gloves, hazmat suits, and paper towels...

   For the last three days, Molly has been Pull Up free, much to the dismay of the Huggies diaper company, and her mother.  We are going hard core on the potty training.  Big girl panties only...which can present horrible situations, including but not limited to, our Target "pee and run" incident in small appliances.  She has also developed a new move that I can safely say never occurred with Colin.  She has taken to peeing on the potty, all on her own, but forgetting to pull down her panties.  An "A" for effort, but an "F" for mommy's laundry situation.  I refuse to cave, so I pack my backpack with a fresh pack of wipes, two changes of clothes for Molly, and several pairs of panties.  I throw in a few gallon size ziploc bags as well as we head out the door to our play date for the day.  We are meeting our friends at The Fernbank Science museum, and I am excited.  Not just for air conditioned play time, but because I haven't been able to see Ginny and the Triplets in forever.


   We hit the road, and head south on 75.  The children are in rare form, OK, maybe I should just call it normal form these days.  They were not happy about forced potty breaks prior to our departure, and they continued in a downward spiral of hitting, kicking, pinching, and whining.  If I heard "Mommy, Cowin hit me,"  or "Mommy, Molly is touching me with her foot" one more time on our 35 minute drive to the museum, I thought my head might actually explode.  We arrive, after avoiding several speed traps, and accidentally missing our exit, our very typical "15 minutes" late.  Molly peepees in the "car potty" before we enter the museum, and we are ready for some dinosaur fun.


    Ginny is the proud mother of four year old triplets.  When you put our two families together, we are pretty hard to miss.  We descend upon the kids area of the museum, and set the children free.  I am nervous about Molly and accidents, but hopeful.  Ginny and I set up camp on some fake rocks, and attempt to keep a head count of our children while catching up on the last several weeks.  Within minutes, one of the triplets needs to go potty.  Ginny heads off, and I stay to keep watch.  Next, it's Molly.  I decide to take her, since I highly doubt her ability to tell me when she needs to go.  After two bathroom trips in the first 20 minutes, I decide it could be a super awesome Mommy drinking game.  We could take a shot for every trip to the potty.   Two shots if they have an accident.   Of course, we would also have to bring nannies to watch the children, and to drive the drunk mommies home.  Instead, we just keep a mental tally, and laugh as the total increases.


   The children are all playing well together.  That is until I see Molly body check a small two year old.  I cover the distance between us quickly, help the other little girl up, make Molly apologize, and carry her over to my fake rock.  I sit her down for a time out when I catch a whiff...Oh dear Lord.
"Molly, did you go poop in your underwears?"
"Yes...Sorry."


     I alert Ginny to the Code Brown situation.  She nods in understanding.  I grab my survival kit/backpack, and we head as quickly as possible to the restroom.  Molly is angry that I am taking her away from playtime, but my time is limited.  This is not an optional bathroom trip.  We enter the restroom, and set up camp in the handicap stall.  I figure we will need the space.  I take off her shoes, and then I pull off her dress.  She doesn't seem to understand how to hold it up out of the way, so I just take the dress out of the equation.  I pull out the wipes and two gallon size ziploc bags.  I pull down her training panties, but no amount of "extra padding" can hide what has happened.  The poo is everywhere.  I set the science project that is my daughter's underwear off to the side, and try to clean her.  She has even managed to get poop on her feet during the process.  Half a pack of wipes later, Molly is kind of clean.  It comes to me as I am squatting on a public bathroom floor, using plastic bags as gloves to rinse out the poop in the potty, I am going to need more equipment over these next couple of weeks.  Molly is no ordinary toddler.  I make a mental list of paper towels, elbow length gloves, plastic drop cloth, and perhaps even a hazmat suit to throw in my bag for our next adventure.  I might be able to pick up a few needed items at work this weekend...


   Back to play time, and plenty of handwashing and hand sanitizer later, we decide to head downstairs for lunch.  The kids eat, and I eat way too many of their leftovers, due to my increased level of stress.  Well, that is what I am telling myself.  We glance over at the exhibit across the way, and I have to laugh.  The title "The Scoop on Poop."  I point to it and tell Ginny I should have just brought Molly down there for a live exhibition.  We decide that the exhibit was a "must see" for our little crowd.  The exhibit was interesting, strange, and hilarious all at the same time.  Some scientists had a lot of fun putting it together.  It was kind of like being trapped in a life size version of the book "Everyone Poops."


   As we leave the museum, we have caused horrible meltdowns in four out of the five children.  I was relieved to see Ginny's four year old's throw just as big of a tantrum as Colin.  They were all sad for different reasons, but the drama was consistent.  Their lives were obviously over, and we were the worst mommies in the world.  Ginny smiled, and said just what I was thinking.  "I am so glad to see that this happens with other kids.  Now I can feel a little more normal.  I was starting to wonder."  We console each other, reassure each other, and attempt to herd our howling "cats" out of the museum.  As we traipse through the parking lot, I yell over to Ginny, "Maybe we could open our windows, and people would assume the noise was a siren, and get out of our way?"  Who am I kidding? This is Atlanta.  People cut off ambulances if they can.


   The fighting continues in the car.  More hitting, more kicking, more whining...."Mommy, I need juice."  "Mommy I need goldfish."  "Mommy, I want to watch a movie."  Well kids, Mommy wants Tequila.  We can't always get what we want...Including a nap...A simple shot of tequila and a nap would have been awesome.  Of course, I settled for a large cup of coffee, and watching a show on the DVR.  I lied and told the kids NickJR was off the air for an hour. Some days, a girl has got to do, what a girl has got to do :)