Yesterday, I learned a lesson that you’d think I would have learned a long, long time ago.
Never leave home without the diaper bag. Never.
Caleb is 14 months old, so you’d think I would have learned this lesson long ago. Maybe even in the first month of his life? During those first few months of blowouts…?
Nope. Apparently not.
Caleb and I have taken to going to Costco on days that I’m watching him…he finds the huge open space exciting and always loves an opportunity to push the cart around. So we’ve done this quite a few times in the past couple months. I’ve never taken the diaper bag with me. And I’ve never had a problem.
Until yesterday.
I had changed his diaper right before leaving, and everything was fine. Happy baby. Clean diaper. Excited for an adventure.
And an adventure we would have.
As I was pulling off the freeway in Medford, I began to smell something. It wasn’t really a disgusting poop smell…in fact, it actually smelled a little sweet.
So I thought something was up, but I hoped for the best.
We pulled into Costco, and I took him out of the carseat, flipped him around and then….
SHIT.
He had pooped.
“Caleb – what the heck dude!? Dad doesn’t have the diaper bag – why would you do this?”
He just smiles at me.
So, I sat him in the trunk and frantically called Sarah. “Hey – we need to keep an emergency diaper bag in the car. He shit his pants. We just got to Costco. And I left the diaper bag at home. Why?!?”
Sarah: “I don’t know. I always take the diaper bag with me. Hey, we might have a changing pad with a diaper in the car.”
Me: “Awesome. Thanks. Bye.”
So we found the changing pad, found a diaper one-size too small, but figured it would work, and then pulled out the wipes, and they were completely dried out.
Not so awesome. Well, let’s still see if this might work.
So, as he began to scream at me, I finally got his pants off in the trunk, and that’s when I saw it.
Poop.
Leaking.
Poop.
All over the inside of his pants.
Bummer. Call to Sarah again.
Me: “Dammit. It’s a blowout.”
Sarah: “Do you want me to bring you the diaper bag? I can do that if you need it…”
Me: “No, we’ll figure it out. Love you. Bye.”
Okay. No wipes. A diaper too small. Poop all in pants. What’s a dad to do?
So I decided we needed to go into Costco, do our shopping, and hopefully get some wipes in there and a new set of clothes.
I found a way to get his poop-filled pants back on him without getting poop on the outside of his clothes, so we did that, put his shoes back on and then went into Costco. Because Costco is such a nice, wide open space, I didn’t really smell him TOO bad, but the poor little guy was just sitting in poop.
So we did our shopping quick, found a cheap little Carter’s onesie/pants set for $7 and then found the wipes.
A box of 900 wipes. That was my only option.
I wasn’t going to spend $20 on 900 wipes that weren’t the kind I liked, so I decided we’d just go get diapers and wipes at Safeway. So we got ourselves back in the car seat and off to Safeway, where I got wipes, diapers and a Maple Bar.
Unfortunately, I’d parked in the very front spot of the parking lot to be close to the shopping carts, so we set out to take care of our business with the whole world watching. I was able to get his clothes off, clean him up and get the new diaper on, only with minor shrieking because I’d given him the maple bar. However, by the time his butt was clean, his hands, face and stomach was all sticky with the remains of a maple bar.
My favorite part was all the moms who walked by, giving me looks that clearly said, “Oh, look at that poor dad, trying to figure out what to do and how to deal with that blowout…”
But Caleb eventually finished the maple bar, got cleaned up and got his new clothes on.
Last night I put together a nice little emergency diaper bag that will always remain in the car. Not going to let this happen to me again. Good times.
Leesah says
When our little one was younger, we could count on a pretty regular poop schedule. If it didn’t happen right before he woke up in the morning, it usually happened right before or in the middle of a nap. But now he’s all over the place with it! An emergency diaper bag in the car sounds like a great idea. Glad you two worked it out!