The Green Goblins

I like to think that I am a fairly level headed mother. Afterall, I have three hellion kids, ranging in ages from 13 to 2. They all attend different schools that have different starting and ending times, and they each have different teacher in-service days. None of them have any skills in keeping track of their socks and none of them like to eat the same things for breakfast. If that doens’t set me up to handle just about anything short of a daily tsunami, then shut the hell up and get out of my way. But today I met my match.
Today was a snow day for the older two kids. Loren promptly made plans to go snowboarding with his cronies. So I decided to take Cassidy and Devon to the pool with a few stops on the way home to look for more purple Christmas lights for the Carmen Miranda tree I am constructing in the corner of my mother’s living room. We swam and had a jolly good time in the mist of the natural hot spring ppols. We caught snow flakes on our tongues and pretended we were dolphins. We then showered and headed out to our errands. We first hit Wal Mart in hopes of the purple lights. We had minimal luck, purple lights with white cords. White cords are no good. Duh. Can’t have white cords with green cords all on the same tree. So then we headed off to the crafts aisle where I did happen to find amazing plastic pineapples and grapes and chili peppers that I will encrust with opalescent glitter for the top of the tree. I was in heaven with my fruity find.
But then IT happened. Devon started to turn bright purple in the basket as he muttered with great strain, “I maaaaake oooooheeeeeey, Mai-Mai. Oooooooheeey!” I realized our fruit gathering was done and started to make the way towards the bathrooms. Of course I got held up several times during our route, I was deep in the paint aisles looking for opally spray paint when I started to hear gurgling coming from Devon’s gluteal region. Hmmmm, didn’t sound so good. So I set aside the spray paint notions and again headed for the bathrooms. Again I heard the bubbling sound, smelled the alarming aroma and started moving faster.
We made it to them bathroom, I scooped Devon out of the basket and headed for the changing table. I thought it odd that Cassidy was staying back with the basket, but I just wanted to get Devon changed and thought little of it. As I was lifting Devon on to the changing table, I sensed something was not quite right. And that was when I saw IT. Drops of green. First on the edges of the changing table. Then on the floor. Then I realized they were leading all the way out to the shopping basket, the door to the bathroom was open becasue it was cleaning hour. No wonder Cass decided to jump ship, we were dripping gooey, green shit across Wal Mart. And it wasn’t just down Devon’s pant legs. It was soaked into his snow boots, and shooting up his turtleneck. I had to ask the cleaning lady for a bag from her cart to accomodate the deadly garments. Luckily I had sufficent wipes, but we are beyond the extra change of clothes stage and I had nothing to put him in other than his coat. I briefly entertained the thought of sending Cassidy out to choose an outfit for him, but then I decided that it really wasn’t all that cold out and that he could jolly well suck it up and get home in his coat and diaper.
When I finally cleaned up the changing table and took Devon back to the cart, I noticed the green puddles around our basket. I hesitated, thinking a better person would clean up the mess. But being the lesser person, I decided I had dealt with the mess in the bathroom and I had to move on. Hoping nobody else had noticed the neon green spots of bodily excriment on the floor, I popped Devon in the cart, gathered Cassidy and headed for the check out line. I had to send Cass back to replace a few of the goo encrusted items in the cart before we could check out. And if anybody else happened to notice the naked baby under the winter coat in the middle of December, they were far too polite to remark on our outward display of white trashness.
We got home in one piece, with Devon merrily singing a song about stinky butts in the backseat. He laughed about how cold is was on his bare feet and where oh where were his boots. The whole drama involved no tears or yelling. I was amazingly cool and even keeled about it. But there was something so deeply unnerving about dripping green, neon pooh across Wal Mart and on to our shopping cart of goods. I don’t have a whole lot of stamina right now, and using what precious little I do have to clean a righteously dirty baby ass in front of a hall way of strangers rather took it out of me today. Devon ended up having several more blow outs and taking a huge three hour nap. He likely has a tummy bug. But instead of fretting about it? I also took a huge nap. Wiping ass bushed me something fierce and I had to admit defeat. Sometimes parenting is just that way.