A Poo of Mass Proportions

I’ll tell you: It wasn’t a bad way to spend a good chunk of a layover. (NOTE: In the pic above, Nora is still in her pajamas. We changed her into a cute little sleeveless and legless romper—appropriate for 90+ degrees in Mexico!—before we got back on a plane. This detail is important later.)

Anyway, the three hours passed like no big deal, and soon it was time to board our flight to Cancun. Still drowsy from the early-morning wake-up call, Nora promptly fell asleep shortly after take off, and proceeded to sleep the majority of the three-hour flight.

Uneventful, I say. It was nice.

But then things changed.

In short, things got… gross. (That’s your warning right there. You can’t say I didn’t tell you.)

About 10 minutes before we landed, Nora started making her tell-tale “poop face.” (Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time with babies and small children know exactly what I’m talking about.) Michael and I exchanged a few little laughs and I commented how it was perfect timing, because we were going to be off the plane shortly and could change her diaper at the airport. We have yet to change a diaper in an airplane bathroom, which is nice, because I still cannot picture how that would work logistically.

Nora was sitting on Michael’s lap at the time, and he confirmed that he could feel movement in the diaper. Alrighty then.

A few minutes later, for reasons I am unsure of, Michael suspected that perhaps Nora’s diaper wasn’t doing its job. Its job being containing the poo, of course. So, he casually lifted her up off of his lap to take a peek AND OH MY GOD ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.

Michael’s lap was COVERED in shit. COVERED. We’re not talking about a little leakage here. We are talking a 100% FAILURE on the part of the diaper.

Panic ensued. Because we were trapped. We had a guy sitting in the aisle seat next to us. The seat belt light was on and we were unable to get out of our seats due to the fact that we were, well, landing.

As Michael held Nora about six inches off of his lap, unsure what to do next, I did the only thing I could think of–I grabbed the case of baby wipes, thinking maybe I could “grab” the poo off of Michael’s shorts. I tried that, and well… I’ll just say that there was a whole lot of smearing going on. “Grabbing” was not working for this particular variety of poo.

It was hopeless.

About 20 poopy baby wipes later (which I stuffed into the ever-handy barf bag located in the seat pocket), Michael was really no cleaner than he had been to start. But at least he didn’t have semi-solid waste sitting on his shorts anymore. Just the aforementioned smears, which of course, smelled like… well… shit.

Meanwhile, we had landed, and were making our way to the gate. The guy next to us, God bless him, was in good spirits, despite his senses being assaulted. He kindly empathized, telling us that his daughter (who is now 17) had once crapped down the back of his neck as he carried her on his shoulders. That made us feel a little bit better, but we still felt sorry for the dude. He cracked a joke to Michael, saying “I hope you have another pair of shorts!”

Um, yeah. That’s the thing. We did not have another pair of shorts. Not on us, anyway. Contrary to every other time we have traveled, we checked all of our baggage, except for a backpack. Because space in the backpack was limited, we had included an extra outfit for Nora, but had not packed extra clothes for ourselves. We broke our own rule, and it had come back to bite us in the ass.

You see, Michael was not going to be able to change his shorts until after we picked up our bags at baggage claim. If you have ever traveled internationally, you know that baggage claim is on the OTHER SIDE of immigration. This adventure was not going to be over anytime soon.

After I had “cleaned” the poop off of Michael’s lap, there was still Nora to attend to. She still had poo oozing out the legs of her diaper, and needed a wardrobe change herself. To avoid exposing the people around us to further foul sights and smells, we sat tight as every.single.soul deplaned before us, despite the fact that we were seated pretty close to the front of the plane. Thankfully, Nora was cooperative as we held her perfectly still–Michael with her upper body, me with her legs.

In the meantime, I told Michael, “I’m sacrificing my Hooter Hider!” (a.k.a. nursing cover) and laid it across his lap so he’d have a clean surface on which to lay Nora. Once everyone was officially off the plane, we stripped Nora of her clothes and disgusting diaper, got the new one on her, and bolted as fast as we could.

In other words, we were the classy people entering the Cancun airport with our baby in nothing but a diaper.

Once in the airport, I threw Nora’s extra outfit on her while Michael secured the Hooter Hider (I’m not being cute; that’s what it’s called!) to the front of him like an apron. The PINK, very girly Hooter Hider. We had to mask the poop somehow! So, Michael walked through the Cancun airport and through a looooong immigration line, looking like this:

At least we were laughing about it. Though, it should be noted that although the Hooter Hider did a good job at masking the sight of the poop, it could not mask the smell. Holy Lord.

We wound our way through the immigration line, every once in a while catching a fresh whiff of poo. It wasn’t pretty, people.

In any case, I apologize to anyone and everyone who may have been in the Cancun airport immigration area around 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 29, 2011. No, someone had not stepped in dog shit. There was not a smelly bathroom nearby.

It was my husband. Because of my daughter.

Well played, travel gods. Well played.

(And lesson learned, by the way. You better believe we will have an extra pair of shorts in our backpack on the way home!)