Road-trippin' With Poop-Head

Last weekend, we took Oliver on his first road trip. He had never met Michael's Grandmother or any of his Aunts and Uncles. Most of them live in Iowa, and Iowa is always a party. So I got packing on Friday night.

Michael took one look at the tupperware bin- yes, one of those big ones- on Saturday, a bin I had thoughtfully and thoroughly packed. He made no expression, but gave a silent pause before hauling it out to the car.

"I bet I can read your mind," I said.

"Oh?"

"Yep. You're saying, with that non-look, that I totally overpacked for a one-nighter. All we really need is a dipaer bag."

"HA!" Micheal yelped, a little too loudly. This translates into, " I'll act as though that's not what I'm really thinking... I don't really want to agree with you outright because then you'll start defending your decision to pack the entire house, and it's just quicker to bring the thing."

I went into defense mode anyway. "You see," I explained, "Michael, we have an 8-month-old now. We need an extra of everything. We need a floor blanket. And then we need to assume that it gets peed-on by the dog of a Great Aunt. So we need another floor blanket. And then he'll spit-up all over his outfit and need a new one by noon. So we'll need a total of 3. And then....." You get the gist.

Michael diligently lifted the loot into the back of the Rav4, and we were off. Oliver was a good little trekker; he slept most of the way there and back. He loved meeting his relatives, and because we never give him any attention at home, he was thrilled to finally have someone available to hold him.

But on Saturday night, the party was over. We tucked him into bed with us in a hotel room, with his blanket and nuk, (both of which I had 3 back-ups for.) And then he screamed. Bellowed, screamed, sobbed, dropped fat tears, and made us wonder if we were inadvertantly prodding him with needles. Each time that I had finally rocked him back to sleep, he whipped his head from right to left with such unsettling discomfort that I swear he would rub off all hair from the back of his head. And then he'd scream some more. For hours, hours, this went on, and Michael and I became desperately worried that we'd be kicked out of our room. And then we'd be staying in our car, Ollie belting screams from his carseat. Around 4 am, after he had been asleep for about an hour, he awoke gagging; just as I sat him up with the reflexes of a mother-nurse, he projectile-vomited, over my pajama bottoms, my pajama top, Oliver's pajamas, and judging by the unmistakable sprinkle-thud, the hotel carpet.

"What do you need me to get?" Michael asked, sleepily distraught.

"I just don't even know," I said, exasperatedly comforting Mr. O, now finally pathetically tired and whimpering. I sat there for a while in the vomit, and then realized one tiny bit of comfort: we were in fact using just about everything I had packed. Being a Girl Scout in troupe 1691 taught me to always be prepared. Take that, doubting Eagle Scout hubby.

The next morning, Oliver was many shades happier. Among other things (an ear infection being one of them, discovered the next day), the poor kid was quite constipated. I found a ginormous ball of solid poo in his diaper.

"Whoah, look at this," I said to Michael.

"No."

"Seriously, it's like the size of a softball."

I stood at the side of the bed. Oliver lay on the bed, playing with his feet, his Daddy a foot or two away, also on the bed. I looked at the poop again and reassessed.

"Okay, maybe not a softball. I guess it's not that big. But, actually though, it is impressive, look-"

I held out the diaper over Oliver to show to Michael. I couldn't help it. The kid accomplished something significant, and he deserved credit. But what happened next is something I will likely never share with him, ever ever, in his life. Ever. The ball of poop rolled off the diaper. And onto Oliver's forehead.

Yes, you read that correctly. I dropped my kid's crap onto his very own face. I picked that thing up so fast with the diaper that he had no clue as to what happened. But the horrifying image caused an outburst of laughter and mild screaming, from me anyway. Michael simply closed his eyes and said, "so yeah, I'm going to pretend that never happened."

Oliver suffered no more than a faint brown stamp on his forehead, which I wiped off about 67 times, and considered treating with something like hydrogen peroxide. The poop is, for sure, absolutely off of his head. But I just can't seem to get it out of mine.