Slo-mo poo show

For anyone who's ever been in a car crash ... made an elaborate show of spilling sangria on your new white pants ... watched as your mother's favorite vase toppled and smashed to bits after you were horsing around ... or maybe were tossed fully clothed into a swimming pool by your older brother ... you know how some unfortunate events in life seem to happen in slow motion. And all you can do is watch.

Well.

Yesterday, JP, Flybaby and I celebrated Father's Day a week early at his parents' house. JP's sister, Sabee, and her husband and boy were there too. Just a nice family gathering to bestow gifts on dear old Dad.

Just as it was time for everyone to help themselves buffet-style, JP and I smelled something.

"The deviled eggs on the table?" I asked.

"Uh-uh," JP said.

"I'll change Flybaby," I said. "It's your special day."

I took Fly to a back bedroom, laid out a blanket, and started to HOLY HECK WHAT A SMELL! started to OH MY GOSH, WHERE DID ALL THIS POO COME FROM? started to "HEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!"

Flybaby flipped over onto all fours and started crawling across my in-laws' carpet.

Perfect, off-white carpet.

You can see where this is going.

And I saw exactly where it all went -- poo creeped up the back of Fly's diaper, onto his romper (one single piece of clothing, only one!), and was now making a horrible, smelly decoration on the wall-to-wall. In that moment, I thought for sure I was on a reality show edited and slowed down to show just what kind of slacker mom I am. (Even though I'm not the Queen of Poop.)

"JP!" I called.

JP was on the scene in a flash. He held Flybaby while I used every wipe we had to clean his bottom, his back -- oh, now it's on his arms, his legs, his ... well, his whole body, actually.

This was happening all while Fly was screaming, which brought JP's mother to the room, and I felt just like the newly soiled spot on her floor.

I think God makes people parents to keep them humble.

JP's mother, MM, cheerfully cleaned the carpet ("We're washable!"), and JP took Fly's romper and washed it in the bathroom sink so it could be tumbled dry in the dryer. I put a new diaper on Fly and tried to get him to quiet down.

MM carried nearly naked Flybaby into the dining room where the whole family was now eating ("Flybaby! What a good look for you!" Sabee said), and I gathered up the wipes, yucked-up blanket and a towel that had appeared from somewhere, stuffing it all in a bag.

I felt so bad that I couldn't eat dinner after all that. I couldn't even look at anyone. Oh, the shame! I imagined Sabee snickering to herself about how I couldn't keep my baby under control. I imagined her and MM tsk-tsking me after we would leave. How the Great Father's Day Poo Stain of 2007 story would come to be told for years to come. How MM would warn me to bring my own changing table next time we visit.

If there's any one trait I want to display in front of JP's family -- especially now that I'm a mother -- it's competence. I think this stems from my first day alone with Flybaby, when MM declared I couldn't possibly take care of Flybaby all by myself! Since that day, I have gone to almost super-human lengths to prove her wrong. I can take care of my baby very well, thank you, and not only that, but hey! I'll host Thanksgiving dinner too! I'll design and mail birth announcements with the 53 thank-you notes I had to write after receiving so many gifts for Fly. I'll keep going even when I get mastitis.

And then -- oh, thankfully -- something like a poosplosion happens to take me down a notch and remind me I'm just a normal parent with a normal baby who poos the way babies sometimes poo, and if that means my child sits naked at the family dinner table for Father's Day? Tough tacos.

Let she who has never lost control of her child cast the first stone.