Humbling Times

I used to be sorta cool. 

Sorta.

Well, at least I used to have some dignity.

Earlier this week I took my little Sam with me to Target.  Well – I had no choice really…Bryan was at work, Ben was in preschool…anyway…I thought it sounded funny that I said that I took him with me, as if it were a deliberate thought – “Hey, I’ll take my almost-2-year-old-squirmy-wiggly-loud-baby with me to Target!  That sounds like FUN!”

Anyway.  I digress.

True to form, during our shopping trip, Sam filled his diaper.  With poop.  And true to form, I’d forgotten the diaper bag.  No, it wasn’t in the car.  It was at HOME.  And this was a BIG POOP.  Thankfully I was purchasing diapers anyway, and I keep a small pack of wipes in my purse.  I’m prepared like that.  (With a recently potty-trained 3-and-3/4-year-old, it greatly behooves me to keep wet wipes on hand at all times. Sometimes the TP in public restrooms just won’t do the job well on a curious little boy who wants “to see”…)

So we wrap up our shopping trip relatively well, and even met a nice lady from church in the check-out line (ha ha!  “Hello, glad you are way back there and cannot smell what is going on up here!”) – and make it out to the car just fine.  Thankfully we have a SUV with a large area in back where I can change diapers.  I have utilized this area more than a few times in the past four years, in various parking lots around town.  But does Sam want to wait patiently while Mama cleans the poop off his bottom?  Even if she gives him a monster truck toy to play with?  Nope.  He is a bit upset with me.  He doesn’t want his diaper changed – he’ll keep his poop, thank you very much.  He squirms…he wiggles…he protests greatly.  I empty one plastic bag of recently purchased products into another bag, and use that as the “poop bag.” 

I am quite used to the squirming – I have even changed poopy diapers with Sam standing up (see this post on my diapering abilities).  But this was really a bad poo.  And the wipes I had were not the kind that would pop out when you pull the one on top out – no no – they laid so flat that I could hardly find the next wipe in the package. 

By wipe #4, I’d gotten most of the mess, and went to drop it into the said “poop bag,” and then I felt it.  And then saw it.  Poop.  On. My. Finger. Now, since becoming a mother nearly four years ago, I have had my share of poo on my person.  I’ve been pooped on, puked on, and peed on (little baby boys are very good at baptizing their unsuspecting parents).  There is not a lot  that can gross me out.  But this little bit of poo really grossed me out.  There was something…unprocessed…in it.  

And Sam is meanwhile swinging his poopy little bottom around as I hold onto his ankles.  I have to leave the gross poo on my finger, try not to get it on the car or my clothes, and continue trying to clean off the swinging bottom.  And somewhere in this chaos I thought, “I used to be sorta cool.  Sorta.”  Now I’m wrestling an angry baby while changing his poopy diaper in the back of my car in the Target parking lot in 100-degree heat with what feels like 100% humidity. 

Sigh.  Deep breath.  Mental pep talk:

me:  “This too shall pass.” 
self:  “Someday he’ll grow up and leave home and I’ll be really, really sad and wish I were changing his diaper again.” 
me: “But not a poopy diaper.  No, I don’t think I’ll miss those.”
self: “Probably not.”

As I finish wrapping up the mess, cleaning my hands with disinfectant wipes (that I also keep handy in my purse – because I’m prepared like that) and getting Sam dressed again, the nice lady from church (with her four kids) arrive at their van, which is parked just a few spaces down from mine.  Well, if anyone would understand this situation, it would be her.  I just said, “We had a diaper change!” and she replied, “Oh I’ve been there!”  It was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one, because at the moment I really felt like I was.

And then Sam and I got into the car and drove away, finally cooling off with the A/C.  I love A/C.  It is most essential in AZ.  I finally felt sorta cool.  Sorta.

But only in the temperature way.

Isaiah 40:11 – “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”

This verse always comes to mind during frustrating times like these.  Knowing that God is with me and leads me as I am trying to care for my “young” is so reassuring.  He’s with me even during the poopy diaper changes in hot parking lots.  There are times when being a mother feels like the lowest of low positions, with all the various clean-up duties of house and child.  Sometimes I’m the last one to eat, last one to shower, last one to sleep.  Yet God gently guides me as my loving Shepherd and gives me what I need to be the mother he needs me to be.  In His eyes, I don’t have to be “cool.”  I don’t have to be “cool” in my children’s eyes, either.  They don’t even know what that means.  They just need me to be there – with them.  And sometimes that means cleaning up their poo.  And that is okay. 

I was never very cool anyway.