Poo Emergency

Just a quick little story to illustrate that things are back to normal- or at least as "normal" as they are going to be for a new family with a 4-month-old.

We took a hike last weekend, to Punchbowl Falls in the Columbia River Gorge. It's a beautiful hike to amazing waterfalls. Dave had Aleida in the Bjorn. I carried a camelpack. We left the dogs at home, because it's a very narrow trail with very steep drop offs and lots of human/dog traffic. Don't worry, we made it up to them later with a solid session of fetch in the park.

Anyway, we hiked to the turn around point- the scenic falls. I pulled up a rock and sat down with my baby to feed her. I'd packed my nursing shield. As she was feeding, she let out one of her alarmingly loud, but not rare, poops. She was wearing a disposable diaper. We do cloth at home, but still travel with disposables. As she relieved herself with the force of a cork coming off of a champagne bottle, I thought about how I'd failed to bring an extra diaper on the trail. The diaper bag was well stocked, but alas, still in the car. She's not one to complain about a dirty diaper, so I felt a bit guilty, but figured she'd be okay for the hour it took us to hike down the trail.

That was until I felt the wetness on my leg. I looked at Dave and averted my eyes toward her bottom. "On my thigh...Is that...?"

He lifted the nursing shield to get a glimpse. "Oh yeah. That's poo. Oh no." I couldn't see the damage and Aleida was still happily feeding, but I could tell, from his face, it was serious.

"I didn't bring an extra diaper," I said.

"We're going to have to do something. You'll see."

I did see. Out of the diaper, through the onsie, through AJ's pants, through MY pants and onto my leg. That was the situation. Poo emergency on the trail. An hours walk from anywhere.

We took stock of our camelback, which we fortunately did not empty after each hike. We happened to have a roll of toilet paper, and several plastic bags- including a couple of the variety made especially for picking up dog poop.

AJ's whole outfit was ruined. Surprise, I didn't have a spare outfit in the bag, either! Here's what we did, AJ's MacGruber parents.

We stripped her down and threw all the poo-covered items into a bag. We wiped her down with toilet paper, then used more toilet paper to serve as the absorptive part of the makeshift diaper. We put holes in the corners of one of the dog poop bags, and shimmied this up over AJ and the toilet paper. We then wrapped Aleida in my nursing shield, and reinstalled her in the Bjorn. She took all of this with her usual good humor, not at all perturbed to be naked at the top of a mountain trail, nor wearing a paper and plastic bag diaper and makeshift toga back down the mountain.

I figure, this girl will either grow up to be highly adaptable, or just plain resentful of her parents. Lesson learned: Never take the baby anywhere without a spare diaper.