Lessons and People Watching

PART ONE
WARNING: THIS POST IS NOT FOR THOSE WITH LIGHT STOMACHS, WHO ARE EASILY DISGUSTED BY THE DISCUSSION OF BODILY FLUIDS, OR EASILY OFFENDED BY BLUNT STATEMENTS.

You know how sometimes things just start off on the wrong foot and tend to continue in that direction no matter how hard you try? Our travels to Florida began last Sunday. I went in to find my child with a pull-up full of diarrhea, who had peed and it had soaked her jammies, because the pull-up was so full of the other previously mentioned bodily fluid it had no where else to go. In the process of trying to get said child out of the disgusting pull-up we ended up with an even bigger mess. I managed to get Emma cleaned up, the floor cleaned up, the dirty jammies and changing cover and pad rinsed, and than ran around twice as fast as any mother wants to move before 7:00am, when everyone and everything for a week long trip needs to be in the car BEFORE 7:00am. This is also not something a mother wants to encounter when she knows that she'll be traveling with said child the rest of day by herself, because her husband is on another flight. (Brian was traveling for work so he had a small selection of flights, and I had a free ticket with Southwest.)

Fortunately for everyone (including my husband who is probably very thankful our trip to Orlando was uneventful so he didn't have to hear about it for the rest of his life!), we had a very uneventful trip and our darling child was a perfect angel! Brian's flight was a bit late getting in to Orlando and it took him a life time and a half to get through the rental car line, and sometime after 10:00pm we made it to the hotel.

Our room had two double beds... as many of you regular readers are aware, Brian and I don't fit so well in a double bed, we especially don't fit well in a double when around 5:00am our wiggly, bed hogging almost two year old crawls into bed with us because she realizes she's in a strange place. It was decided because Brian actually had work to do while we were in Florida that I had Emma duty, and would sleep with her. About 5:00am Monday morning I hear un-normal sounds coming from my child's stomach, then a pause, then more un-normal sounds, and then a terrible smell. I immediately new what had to be done, and scooped my child out of bed, careful not to hold her upright, knowing the contents of her pull-up (we thought it would make life easier in the parks and such with pull-ups and didn't get any diapers, because at that time we were unaware of just how TERRIBLE they are at dealing with and containing the stinkier of the human excrement. ) would spill out all over the hotel room floor. After placing her on the toilet and letting her finish her business, I got her jammie bottoms off, pull-up off, child cleaned up, Emma blanket removed from the bed as it had not got off scot free, and was relieved to find nothing in our bed!

At this point in the story I'd like to point out our darling almost two year old had started teething big time the week before on her last four molars, so we associated these prior incidents with teething. I don't care what any book, or doctor for that matter tells me, MY CHILD gets terrible diarrhea and quite often a nasty case of diaper rash as a result while teething.

We had an uneventful day at Animal Kingdom, however we discovered when you live in the desert and its soo freakin' dry all the time, your body goes into crazy overdrive sweating up a storm in the very HUMID air of Orlando Florida. (This will become an important fact in just a short moment.) Knowing how much we had sweat like pigs that day, and how we had probably not had enough to drink (we can only spend so much money on a $2.50 bottle of water), we stopped at the cafeteria to get some water and powerade.

Brian got up Tuesday and went to work for the morning, and Emma and I decided to sleep like champs. She woke up around 8:00am wanting some water, so I gave her some water. She drank 3/4's of it and then puked it up all over me, all over the top to the jammies she had exploded on the day before, all over one of the hotel pillows, on the floor and then twice more in the toilet. Fortunately it was mostly water. At this point - I was beginning to see a trend in our vacation, and not a trend I was over excited about. The rest of Tuesday was uneventful and consisted of lots of water for Emma, and a very bland assortment of whatever foods we could get her to eat. UNTIL the light parade at Magic Kingdom....

We were standing around waiting for the parade to start when Brian got a strong smell of unpleasantness. He looked down to check Emma's pants (in my next post I'll explain why we weren't totally convinced it was her), and was appalled and disgusted by what he found. DIARRHEA had STRUCK again, and worse then we could have ever imagined.

AGAIN I REMIND YOU - IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH OR HAVE BEEN DISGUSTED BY ANYTHING I'VE WRITTEN SO FAR STOP RIGHT NOW!

It was oozing out in full force into her shorts, and wasn't too far from escaping. We hurry as fast as two parents in this situation at Disney can possibly hurry. I'm praying the whole way to the restroom that there is a family bathroom where we can all go in and deal with the situation. NO LUCK. I grab the backpack with the changing stuff, scooping Emma up YET AGAIN so as not to spill the delightfullness from my daughters pants. Not only had it escaped into her shorts, it was up her back and her front. Yeah basically it was EVERYWHERE!! After using up all the wipes in the container I had, wetting some paper towels and getting my daughter and the changing table cleaned up, I put her in an extra pair of shorts and a sweatshirt (I KNOW, I know, not the most weather appropriate clothing for June in Florida, but when a Mom packs a diaper bag for a mostly potty trained toddler, she doesn't pack a shirt! At least this Mom didn't until this week!!!) I emptied a bag of some things we had purchased at Epcot so I had something to put her clothes in and headed out of the bathroom. All I could smell was poop, all Brian could smell was poop, and we decided the light show just wasn't rating higher than the strong desire to get back to the hotel and get our daughter and ourselves cleaned up!

After many trips to the bathroom over the next few days, and an average of three bananas a day, we finally though we were over the hurdle, so while visiting Grandpa Bohan and Judy on Friday we decided to give Emma some milk. We put Emma to bed around 7:30, and headed to bed shortly after, as we had to leave their house at 3:00am to get to the airport for Brian's 6:00am flight. Brian and I fell asleep around 9:00pm and around 11:00pm I heard Emma stirring. By 11:30 I was hearing the ALL TOO familiar STRANGE gurgling noises coming from my daughter. For what feels like the billionth time this week I swoop my daughter up, careful not to hold her upright, and rush to the bathroom. As my poor baby girl sat on the toilet mostly asleep filling the toilet with every ounce of fluid in her body from her bowels, I rinsed out the last pair of Jammie bottoms, searched through the back pack from something acceptable to put Emma in so we could go back to sleep, and disturb Brian as little as possible. I also pulled the sheet off Emma's air mattress and rinsed that, and wiped up the air mattress. I grabbed a towel for my darling daughter to sleep on and placed her in bed with us, knowing full well that was our best bet for sleep for the rest of the night. After some terrible sleeping, 2:00am rolls around and Emma starts moving around like she uncomfortable. I sweep her up and race her to the bathroom where once again she sits on the toilet, with the saddest look on her face as she emptied the contents of her insides.

Fortunately we managed to travel back to New Mexico without incident - which is good because we were down to one pull-up and swimmy diapers....

Well, if I haven't disgusted you all from ever reading our blog again, stay tuned tomorrow for a post about some of the people watching Brian and I did in our travels to Florida and back.