Travel Olympics.

As you may recall (or may not if you don’t hang on every word I write, although I can’t imagine who wouldn’t), my little boy and I traveled down to Dallas for some househunting and good old-fashioned Texas heat.  Overflowing with exuberance upon our successful arrival, I shoved thoughts of our return to the far corners of my brain until the night before the flight. 

Egads. On Monday I was dismayed that another husband-free, baby-full flight were on the next day's itinerary.

In what I have to believe was in honor of the Olympics, my little boy presented me with a travel program any judge would deem difficult.  Team USA better leave an empty chair for me on the morning talk show circuit because, dammit, my performance was golden.

With a new sense of confidence from the last go round, this time I charged through the airport like my former super-duper miles club elite self.  I wanted the world to know me and my baby were travel pros!  “Oh, his name?” I even said to one woman, “it means traveler.  We’re just bringing it to life!” 

Sometimes I am such an ass.

The first mid-air poop was for amateurs.  We were already free to move around and the plane had a changing table.  Easy-peasy.  It was during the second one that my program went from average difficulty to triple-lutz backflip dismount difficulty.

The first thing that surprised me about the second poop was that it was happening.  He had just gone!  With the beverage cart next to us, we were going nowhere until everyone in the vicinity had  tomato juices and peanuts in hand.  The baby seemed to understand the serious business of the beverage cart and continued happily bouncing on my lap and grabbing at everything on said cart. 

The next thing that surprised me about this poop was that it was all over his foot.  At first, I thought it was chocolate.  My first thought was, "How did he grab that from the beverage cart?" followed by, "They have chocolate on the beverage cart?!" followed by, "He can't have dairy!!!" 

Quickly, the smell revealed it was no Hershey bar. 

The third thing that surprised me was that it was also all over the upper part of his leg.  Foot and bum?  What kind of path had this poop traveled?  At this point, I went into fight or flight mode.  Since I was already on a flight and hate redundancy, my only choice was fight.  I ripped open the wipes and swiped as much as I could from his little body. 

My eyes got wide when I realized he had spent the last five minutes bouncing his little bottom in my lap.  I looked down and didn’t see anything.  THANK GOD I’d chosen an incredibly ugly brown dress that morning, the perfect poop camoflauger. 

The fourth thing that surprised me was that I’d thrown an extra outfit in the diaper bag.  Blowouts became a thing of the past, or so I thought, around five months.  Speaking of blowouts, how disgusting is that Huggies or Luvs commercial where the cartoon babies have blowout contests?  Guh-ross!!  An onstage poop contest?  No thanks, stupid brand managers.  Not really getting after Mom’s heart with that one.

Anyhoo, I ran to the bathroom and got him changed.  I also tried to wash my dress one-handed with a combination of wipes, airline handsoap, and hand sanitizer that I’d left in my diaper bag for the past week and had turned the color of milk in the Texas heat.  It was not a success.

Back at my seat, there was one more surprise in store: a giant smear of poop on the back of the chair in front of us.  “How the hell did he do that?” I thought.  His first finger or foot painting is not one for the fridge.

Feverishly, I wiped it away which was difficult because it dried a bit while I was in the bathroom managing Diaper-geddon.

A kind stewardess, of which there are only five left in the continental US, gave me a bag for his soiled clothes and we continued our journey back.

There was another leg without an inflight changing table and two more mid-air poops, all of which I spent smelling like a delicate blend of rubbing alcohol and shit.  Kardashians, there’s a fragrance idea.

The boy, couldn’t have been happier.  At the end he gave me a giant open-mouthed kiss and whispered, “I know you like challenges, mom!” as he sucked on my cheek. 

It is entirely possible I hallucinated that last part after six hours of smelling like poo.