.... but here it is again, 'cause what's a humiliating moment if you don't share it with the world?
I had to take the minivan in for an oil change and to replace the spare tire, which had been called into duty to replace a wicked flat we'd gotten the week before. I made the appt for first thing in the morning, so 9am found the kiddo and me hanging out in the customer lounge at the local Toyota dealership. This is not as horrible an errand as it might otherwise be, as they have a TV (and you know those Wiggles are on at 9) and a huge fish tank in one corner which is a source of endless fascination to DD. About 20 minutes go by, Em happy as a clam between dancing around to the Wiggles and talking to the fish. The lounge gradually fills up with various other grown-ups, some smiling at and chatting with Emma (she is quite social) and others looking pained in that "Ew, kids" sort of way. I tried to keep her reigned in so as not to irritate the non-kiddo lovers in the room. All of a sudden, Emma goes to the coffee table in the middle of the lounge, places her hands on the table in a "being searched by the cops on the car hood" sort of way, leans over and sticks out her bottom. She then proceeds to grunt very loudly and dramatically for about 30 seconds, then straightens up, throws her arms up in a "touchdown!" type gesture, and shouts happily
"STINKY MAMA!! STINKY POO, POO, POO!!" before turning around and trotting back over to the fish tank, where she cheerfully resumed her earlier conversation with the fish as though nothing had just transpired.
Now, even without the fanny-waving and overly dramatic grunting, much less the very loud, hearty announcement, it would have very quickly become obvious to the room at large that Emma had in fact, ahem, used her diaper, because she created SUCH a stench that I swear little vapor trails were coming out from behind her as she stood in front of the fish tank! You could practically HEAR the smell in the pin-drop silence that followed Emma's grand announcement. Naturally, all eyes were glued firmly on me, "Mama," too.
How badly I wanted that hole in the floor to open right up and swallow me, taking me away to a land of cocktail dresses and high heels, adult beverages in fragile glasses and scintillating conversation with the likes of George Clooney, but instead I found myself changing the World's Stinkiest Diaper there in the corner of the customer lounge (who'd have thunk it - a car dealership's bathrooms are woefully unfit for diaper duty)... Once I had her cleaned up (in record time as she fortunately wasn't pulling her usual wriggling around routine), I spent the looooongest 10 minutes of my life waiting for my car to be ready so we could escape the lounge and get home!
Kids! When I later shared this story with my parents, they informed me this was clearly karmic revenge for the various incidents from MY childhood in which I embarrassed them in similar fashion. Somehow, that was not a comforting thought.......
Cheers!
Heather