My parents and I took the kids on an adventure to the BX today. I say adventure because anytime you venture out of the house with small children you have to look at it from the adventurer’s point of view or you’ve lost before you’ve started.

The first five minutes in the store went well. Then Maggie woke up and began to cry. As soon as I picked her up, I found out why. She had a serious poop-splosion and it had shot all the way up her backside turning her outfit a lovely mustard color. I hadn’t thought to restock the diaper bag since yesterday’s adventures, and I didn’t have a spare outfit on me. We very quickly perused the baby section for something suitable to change her into, then my mom handed me a twenty and I dashed to the register and bought the little, yellow sleeper we chose. I then ran to the restroom and began to change her.

I quickly discovered that I had no baby wipes on me either (you’d think I was one of those amateur first time mommies), so I used wet paper towels to clean my daughter. She is, of course, screaming the entire time at the indignity of being naked and cold in a ladies restroom of questionable sanitation. Meanwhile, we are attracting quite a bit of attention from the over sixty crowd. Every granny in the restroom had to peer adoringly at my screaming infant and then look at me questioning my competency as a parent (and seeing as how I forgot both a spare outfit and wipes it was a pretty legitimate concern). I am acting as calm and collected as I can feign under ths kind of scrutiny.

Finally, she is de-pooped and I just need to rip the tags off the little sleeper, unsnap the snaps, and wedge my failing baby inside of it. This sounds really easy, doesn’t it? Well, those snaps are the industrial type. They don’t just unhook easily. It is very definitely a two handed job. So while the grannies all stare, I juggle the baby and the sleeper with the super glued snaps. I’m sure I was quite amusing. They probably thought I was one of those wackos who steals a baby from it’s pram, then changes her clothes and hair color in the restroom and disappears into the crowd.

Then this saint of a woman enters the restroom, sees me struggling and offers to help me unsnap the blasted sleeper and dress my squalling baby.

With a little assistance, Maggie was clothed in a matter of seconds. The other grannies busied themselves washing their hands and adjusting their graying hair. I’m sure they were secretly staring at me out of the corner of their eyes to see if I would drop her on the way out. Which I did not, thank you very much.

I return to the BX and find my family. We shop for a few more minutes then my son fixates on a Buzz Lightyear toy that is far too advanced for a two year old. Being the typical two year old that he is, and since it is an hour past naptime, he has a total meltdown. There is no reasoning with him when he is like that. He carries on for about ten minutes before we decide to get the heck out of dodge. As soon as we hit the checkout isle he calmed down. There was CANDY in the isle. He hands me a pack of Starbursts quite placidly for someone who looks so tear streaked. I ask him if he is ready to be calm now. He is. So I tell him to go ask grandma if he can have the treat. Since he is expressing his want with composure instead of screaming with his head spinning around Exorcist-fashion, he gets the treat.

My parents decide to check out the Commissary on their own while I took the kids home for a nap.

I got Jonas in bed and sat on the couch with Maggie on my lap. Suddenly, she makes an extremely forceful and loud poop. She still has the newborn startle reflex so her little arms fling out to the side and her eyes open wide. She looks up at me in absolute shock. And I busted up laughing at her.