Blow. Out.

The following post is not for the faint of heart. Or for anyone eating lunch. Or soon to be moms and dads. In fact, this post is only for those of you with depraved senses of humor or experienced parents and child caretakers who are prepared to nod their head in agreement and frankly, just laugh at me.

The following is the WORLD'S MOST EPIC BLOWOUT STORY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Yes, the title is redundant. Because it is that epic.

There comes a time, in every breastfed babies' life, where they test the capacity of diaper technology. I emphasize breastfed baby because for many months after birth breastfed babies' poops are different. They are not solid. Google it, and you'll see what I mean as this blog is not intended to teach you about the different consisitencies of baby poo. I digress.

So, by testing the capacity and strength and endurance of today's diaper technology, babies have, what we mum's affectionately call blow outs. They crap clear through their diaper. They crap all over their outfit and they typically require immediate bathing. It isn't every time. But it often happens in spurts--they will have no blow outs for weeks and then suddenly 3 in a day. As a baby, Eliot had a handful of epic blowouts. [Perhaps my favorite memory being the time he poo'ed all over me, on a plane, during landing.  Nowhere to go, just sitting and feeling the warmth of my child's extrement spread all over my leg while cringing. I remember looking at my own choice of pants (tan linen) I knew terrible terrible things awaited me once I stood after landing.] In his desire to one-up his brother, however, Nicholas decided pooping on mommy while traveling and causing her to change her outfit was child's play. He could do much better.

And so it was one very cold and rainy day in early December, we found ourselves on the way home from our first family roadtrip. Many factors contributed to this story and so a little background.

Our family had gone to Dallas for a lovely weekend of friendship and running. Scott ran in the Dallas Whiterock half marathon (albeit with pneumonia because he is both a fool and a badass) and I baby wrangled and hung out with friends. We laid pretty low but I did take the boys out on the course to cheer on our friends running their first marathon. We even made inappropriate signs. It was a blast.

The one major hiccup in the trip was we promised Eliot lots of quality swimming time in the hotel pool. Only to find the that big beautiful fancy downtown Dallas Hyatt's pool? Under construction. Many big fat crocodile tears were spilt as a result of the pool's poorly timed construction and so we promised Eliot we'd make it up to him. How do you make up something so enormous and upsetting to a three year old? You take them to McDonalds, you let them play in the disease ridden playplace playground and you let them eat a happy meal. This is a huge treat for our kid and we were happy to oblige.

And so in Denton, Texas we stopped and ate lunch. After ordering our food, I recognized that I needed to change baby's diaper having been on the road for a bit. And so I set off to find a restroom. The primary restroom was closed for cleaning. So I proceeded to find the small "family" one-staller in the playplace area.

Nicholas had been experiencing a blow out here and there in the last week. In addition, in true little boy fashion, he had a couple of times let it fly when I took his diaper off and the cold air hit his boy parts. Therefore, I was cautious when changed him.

He was sleepy and waking up when I entered the restroom. And gassy. Kiddo passes gas like a trucker after an all you can eat chinese buffet. I mean GAS.EE. I shivered a bit as I pulled the Koala changing table down and saw at least 29 communicable diseases on the plastic petri dish. I carefully laid a receiving blanket on the nasty changing table and then laid my bundle of joy on the blanket. Step 1. Lay baby on changing table.

I carefully laid out my tools to accomplish a quick and mostly sterile diaper change. Two wet wipes. Check. New diaper. Check. Unfold new diaper to cover boy parts while changing so he doesn't urinate on me. Check. Step 2. Assembly of diaper changing tools complete.

I recognized he was gassy and that he probably would require a second diaper change after I fed him but he was soaked and needed changed now. I proceeded along to make him comfy while he ate and stretched out on our break. Step 3. Remove the soiled diaper and tossed in the trash.

I looked down and to my horror, with every little toot, baby was pooing, just a bit. Never having actually witnessed this before, I hesitated. I stuttered. A fatal, fatal mistake.  WHAT DO I DO???? Old diaper was thrown away. New diaper didn't need to get all poopy immediately. WHAT DO I DO???? Step 4. Place wet wipes between babies' cheeks to hopefully absorb all the current poo so he can still have clean pants.

And now, my years of being an aunt. My years of being a little girl who played with dolls and "changed baby's diaper".  My years of growing up in a house where my mother ran an in-home day care. My experience as a mother to a 3 year old. They all failed. It was all for naught. Years of child rearing. Useless.

In my hesitation and poor judgment, I reached down to the diaper bag to get additional wet wipes. I then planned to "take a peek" to make sure his business was complete. Ewww. Gross. Step 5. Removal of soiled wet wipes from the baby buns.

And then it happened. The blow out. But unlike a typical blow out, there was no shield. No diaper. No onesie. With one giant push, Nicholas sprayed the entire McDonald's bathroom with bright yellow poo. And it was everywhere. The floor, the sink, the mirror, the toilet, the walls, my hands, my pants, his blanket, his clothes, his socks. I mean everywhere. In one fateful second he shot the contents of his intestines up to three feet across the room.

I froze. How could I not? I had never seen anything so disgusting. So hilarious. And frankly, so impressive.  As I stood there, trying to imagine my next move, he added the icing to the cake and began to urinate, at least a foot in the air, on any remaining surface not already covered by his excrement. I grabbed the new diaper to try to shield him but it was too late, he had already done his damage.  I remained frozen. I mean, honestly, what do you do? Where do you start? And for god's sake, would any of us ever be clean again???

At that moment, Scott and Eliot knocked on the door. "Hey Jenn, Eliot needs to go potty." I snapped back to action. "Uh, just gimma a second." I turned to the sink and first things first. I washed my hands. For the first of four times. They were literally covered in crap. Then I grabbed several paper towels and wiped the top of the toilet off. I opened the door and Scott's eye's widened. "Oh my god, are you okay?" I squeaked out, "I have no idea. But I'm going to have to lift Eliot over to the toilet." And so Eliot came in and immediately said "mommy that is gross!!!" I lifted my big boy over the puddles of grossness and got him set up on the toilet.

And then I got to work. I used probably hundreds of paper towels. I wet them down and just started wiping. I wiped the sink and the changing table. I wiped the mirror and the walls. I wiped off my yoga pants. I have no idea how but it did not hit my shirt. Eliot wrinkled his nose and asked me questions I did not have the answer to "Mommy, why didn't Nicholas poop in his diaper? How did it get on the wall? Mommy, how are you going to clean all this?  This is yucky isn't it mommy? What happened to his socks?"  And then we ran out of bathroom paper towels. And I just started laughing. I could laugh or I could cry so I chose to laugh.

As I assessed the damage to Nicholas, I quickly surmised the onesie and pants were salvagable as he really hadn't been wearing them. The socks, however, were trash. The receiving blanket, trash. The "new" diaper, trash. Once the paper towels were gone I only had a few things left to use to clean. So I got another diaper for Nicholas, put him in it. Put a clean outfit on him. As Eliot wrapped up his business, I got baby cleaned up. I opened the door and handed Scott the baby and Eliot and said, "I'll be out in a minute."

And then I cleaned up what was left, mostly the floor. Somehow Nicholas had created 3 sizable puddles of excrement, on the floor. All I had was a receiving blanket. And so I cleaned everything I could find with the receiving blanket and promptly left it behind in Denton, Texas. Everything in that entire room needed hosed off with Clorox. I was helpless to clean anymore.

I came out and must have look battle weary. Scott asks timidly "What happened in there?" I responded "I'm not ready to talk about it. Let's eat lunch." But I just kept laughing. And shaking my head. And then I told the story to Scott. Who laughed. Who shook his head. And we just looked at little Nicholas. He nursed heartily. Happily played in his car seat. He clearly felt fabulous. I mean wouldn't you? The unspeakable horror of what my darling newborn had inflicted on that already gross bathroom just made me laugh. And cringe. Welcome to motherhood for the 8,935th time. Baptism by fire? No. Baptism by blow out.

My sweet babies about 6 hours prior to the "incident". Now, imagine the horror that could have occurred if it had happened on this fluffy white bed at the Downtown Dallas Hyatt.