First off, let me say that I feel quite embarrassed to have left that last post up. It’s like only realizing after seeing it pixelated online that the picture you posted makes you look a little fat & a little drunk. You feel self-conscious that it is up, but just as self-conscious about taking it down. Won’t that seem vain, to the people who already saw it up? Isn’t that the “real” you, even if you wish it weren’t? That’s how the last post feels. I hate that it is there, and I hate that it is true. And yet….to take it down feels wrong somehow. Life isn’t all tumbling parties & first words.
Fortunately, the funk I was in when I wrote the last post has gone and in it’s place is the new normal I am accustomed to: exhausted, sinking under a long To Do list & madly in love with you-know-who.
We went to the library this morning. One of the nice things about living in Pleasantville is that the libraries here have entire areas devoted to children, areas often the same as or larger than the adult sections. Everyone out here is the parent of a kid, a babysitter of a kid or an actual kid. And the library knows that “real” adults (the ones with lives not dominated by karate, soccer, birthday parties & camp) do not come to the library. Accordingly, the library has child-size tables and chairs, stacks upon stacks of children’s books, puzzles, stuffed animals and even padded areas for the climbers and the floppers.
In addition to reading and playing, the library encourages Z to be very loud. I think it’s a combination of the stillness in the air & the fact that Mommy overemphasizes her whisper-mouth. Z still thinks when I whisper that it is the beginning of a game, to which the appropriate next move is to yell. (I blame the “Opposites” book we read that marries “whisper” and “shout.”) Fortunately, though, there was not one other sole in the library this morning, save the good-natured, bespectacled lady who sings The Library Song at storytime. (Imagine singing this 30 times in a row, while clapping and swaying: Look who came to the library today….the library today….the library today….Look who came to the library today…..YOURRRR NAMMEEEE DIDDDD!)
It will surprise no one who knows us to hear that in addition to yelling, the library encouraged Z to do something else: poop. It was his 10:45am poop, not to be confused with his 9:50am poop or his 11:30am poop. He is still very, um, regular. But what DID surprise me is this: I could not find a changing table! Not even a pull-down in the bathroom. Only a sign in the children’s area that says, “Be courteous and respectful of the library and do not use the childen’s tables or reading area to change diapers.” Ok, fair enough. We moms sometimes have the tendency to forget normal social decorum and will nudify and wipe-ify our children just about anywhere. But to not have any place to do so? In a library overflowing with child-ness? I asked the kindly librarian where to go, expecting her to direct me to a back room I did not know about, complete with changing table, rocking chair and soft music. Instead she just shook her head and said, “Hmm. Maybe the bathroom floor?”
I recognize that my son comes in contact with un-countable un-mentionables on an hourly basis. He’s been known to eat Cheerios off the coffeeshop floor & use his public-playground-mud-hands as tissues. I get it. But the bathroom floor? That’s just too gross to consider. There weren’t even hand towels to use as a barrier with the floor. She really expected me to just lay him down, unprotected, on the same floor where four-year-olds stand and attempt to pee at the bowl. No thank you.
Ordinarily, my immediate response would be to whisk him to the car. Lay him inside, hover over him from outside — poof, a changing table is born. It’s not exactly sanitary, but I know that mess, I made most of that mess, and I can accept it. But winter means frigid temps and brisk winds on a tiny bottom. What to do? That is how today became the day that I discovered that Z & I can both fit in the trunk of our little SUV, hatch shut. It looked weird (probably the reason that man walked by us four times), but actually worked quite well – I was able to let the car run (for heat), and Z was so enamored by the idea that he and mommy were climbing inside the back car cocoon that he made no fuss. And no one’s butt got frozen.
Of course, I didn’t realize until too late that one cannot open the trunk of our car from the inside. Note to self if I ever choose to join the mafia! So that involved a fair amount of contorting. But to have an option, a winter changing room on the go, is huge. Especially for someone carting around a someone else who is right now gearing up for his 6:20pm poo. So as a thank you to you, SUV, for giving me the bounty of your backseat (folded down), I promise to always put the stinky, cheesy, gloppy diapers directly into the micro-bacterial-funk-buster pocket of my diaper bag, and never to leave them to soil and spoil your generous cloth interior.