Diaper Disasters & other Travel Tales

This weekend me, Austin, and Ashley braved a 4 hour drive down to Indiana to visit Angie & her family. I hadn't seen her since her wedding last August which is totally unacceptable because her family lives a whole 25 minutes from me. ;) But, I digress I was hoping that Deb would have made it also but she has been swamped at work so we missed out on the Illinois brood this time.

Traveling with Ashley was quite interesting. We decided to stop at McDonald's mainly for a potty break for Austin but also to get him some food to eat while I fed Ashley in the car. We hit the bathroom and are ready to order when I look down at Ashley and notice a toy between her legs and oh God, it's covered in doody. Yup, a major poonami as Daiva calls them had arrived. I didn't even bring the diaper bag in with me! UGH!! So back out to the car both kids in tow, get the diaper bag, and head back in to McDonald's. Ashley seems fine in her nasty state so I go get Austin his food first as he's suddenly deciding he's dying of thirst. Meanwhile Joe calls so I'm giving him the poo lo down and all of a sudden I hear some old dude yelling at Austin, "DON'T EAT THAT, PUT THAT DOWN!" Austin had dropped a fry and was picking it up, I don't know if he was going to eat it or not but the guy got him upset and he totally cowered, wouldn't eat and was pretty inconsolable until I got him to the bathroom. I just shrugged the guy off, said my kid was sensitive and would be fine, packed up his food and retreated to the bathroom to deal with the poonami. Ugh! Poo out the front, poo out the back, it was everywhere. The carseat looked like a mustard massacre. We cleaned it up as best as we could and headed out to the van. She then ate and by the transitive property from the carseat, to Ashley's new outfit, to me, I myself looked like I'd been in a poonami. Oh well, on the road again.

An hour later she is screaming with boredom. So we hit Wendy's for a frosty and to get her out of the carseat. We again hit the bathroom. The handicapped stall which would have fit all of us was unbelievably nasty. TMI coming...Ladies please, flush the damn toilet and make sure your leavings make it down. I thankfully got us out of there before Austin could see the damages and being he freaks with a little bloody fingernail, seeing this toilet would have severely traumatized him for life and everyone we'd see in the next two weeks would have heard about the massacre in the Wendy's truck stop bathroom. Please people, it's not that hard to flush. The other stalls were tiny and I made Austin wait outside, I barely made it in with the carseat too. I know I would have totally knocked Austin into the toilet if I had him in there too. Alas, we all do our business and are on the road again. Not five minutes later Ashley is screaming again!! Onward we go! She's fed, she's dry, she's just bored. I don't know if that counts as CIO or not but off and on for the last hour she would just let me know she was back there voicing her distaste for the pooey carseat that she thought maybe she'd been destined to spend the rest of her life in. Alas we arrive two hours later than we'd hoped, safe, sound, and everyone is happy again.

We didn't do anything too exciting. We just visited, the kids played, you know the whole newborn pattern of eat, sleep, play. All of us partook. It was a nice trip, too short but nice. The boys are all animals. I wasn't able to get a nice picture of any of them really, too busy making silly faces. Oh well, I think they all had a good time. Ashley gifted us all with another diaper disaster, this time Angie got to wash her bouncy chair. It might be time to look into different diapers.

The trip home wasn't nearly as eventful. We only had to make one stop, again we pressed our luck at McDonald's. We parked way far away so I could feed Ashley fairly privately and then made the long walk in after to use the potty and get Austin an ice cream. Joe calls and I'm trying to get Ashley out of her carseat without dropping the beloved IPhone, I pick her up and Kaboom, the carseat back flips off the table. A nice little 7 year old girl came over and picked up all her toys. What a sweetie. No bathroom drama this time thankfully. We go to leave and it's raining lightly, but remember I parked way out in BFE and by the time we get to the van it's pouring and my keyfab isn't working. So I stumble with the keys, get the kids in and on the road we go again. Albeit a soaked ride home. But a little rain is a bit comical and we only had a little over an hour to go! Yes! We made it home safe and sound. All happy again.

With all the driving craziness I'm so thankful that next week the family flies to Florida. Should be smooth and easy traveling with Joe, Tommy, my Mom, and lil' Justin along to help and 2 1/2 hours on a plane beats 22 hours in the van. Heck with Ashley it would probably be 44 hours in the van. I don't know if we'll ever drive to Florida again. ;)

Overall it was a very good weekend and I would make the trip again. I definitely could have used Tommy but it was good for Austin to be the big man too. And I'm very gracious to Angie, Tim, Max, and Alex for letting us come stay with them. Fun times, fun times. :)

The thing is the poo disasters were really not shocking. Both the boys have done this to us in the past. In fact Tommy got a complete bath at the Bavarian Inn Restaurant bathroom sink once. Austin at the Animal Kingdom sink, a custodian just kept handing me paper towels. Baby poo is much easier to handle than toddler poo, so for that small gift of knowledge I have been given I am thankful as I know it will only get worse. And I will be here with the MacBook to divulge all the gruesome details to you wonderful readers.