Warning: The weak of stomach need not read...

Pardon my language, but we had a sh*tty weekend. There. I said it. I got it out of my system (ha!) I know, I know, you're completely lost at this little burst of sarcastic humor. Sometimes a little laughter is the best way to deal with what life throws you, or at least what it leaves in the car seat.

Our little family traveled to southern Indiana over the weekend for my husband's extended family's annual reunion. My father-in-law is one of 13 siblings, so the gathering can be quite large, as you might guess. Charlotte is number 30ish of the great-grandchildren of the family. My husband's grandmother has not been doing well lately and is in nursing-type care in a local hospital, and my in-laws had driven up early in the week to help out with her. They were staying in the grandmother's house, a little 2-bedroom affair (not the one they raised 13 kids in). We were happy for the free lodging and to have the extra space for Charlotte to run around. We didn't count how grateful we would be later to have access to a washer and dryer.

Saturday morning the big family picnic was scheduled to start at noon, and the 3 of us had driven to Walmart and a grocery store to pick up a cooler, drinks, and other necessities. Charlotte had been in a pretty good mood all morning, which was nice. We were a couple of blocks from the park stuck in a long line of traffic approaching a stop sign, when Charlotte started saying "Potty!" I thanked her for letting us know, but told her that we couldn't stop quite yet, and it was ok to go ahead in her diaper. She whimpered a bit, and drew in her knees, and the next thing I know she was holding her hand out, covered in poop. She had a blowout of massive proportions. We were still in the car in the line of traffic at this point, so I frantically dug out a baby wipe to clean up her hand, and my husband rolled down the windows and called his parents to get the key to the house. Boy what a mess that was. Even if she hadn't been sitting on her butt (thereby elminating all the extra storage room), she would have blown that one out.

We went back to the house and quicky and carefully as we could ran her to the bathroom, stripped her off, and hosed her down in the shower. Her shorts were full , and I found myself rinsing them in the toilet like my mom used to do with cloth diapers to get them "clean" enough for the washing machine. I scrubbed the baby, and my husband followed along behind and scrubbed the tub and the bathroom sink. We got her into an extra outfit, and her soiled clothes and all of the bathroom rugs plus a towel or two went into the washing machine. Yikes what a mess. The carseat seemed to have been mostly spared (it was trapped in the shorts), though it's still due for a cover washing just in case. We made it back to the reunion and through most of the afternoon with a couple more soiled diapers, but no more major blowouts. However, after a hard day's playing and several face plants in the dirt, Charlotte's extra outfit was a mess also. Thank goodness for the washing machine--my sister-in-law volunteered to stop by Walmart and pick her up an extra outfit, but luckily it was not necessary.

By Sunday, we thought we had the issue resolved, as she seemed back to normal. After a big lunch with the family, we loaded up in the car and headed towards home. We didn't even reach the highway before Charlotte did it again. Once again, she had a hand covered in poop and a diaper overflowing. Yuck. This time my in-laws were ahead of us and we couldn't get back into the house, so the McDonalds' bathroom had to suffice. Luckily there was not quite as much, um, material, that escaped, just that it leaked out one of her legs because she was sitting on the diaper in the car. She ended up out of her church dress and back into her (now clean) original outfit from the day before, and hosed/wiped down fairly well in the bathroom sink (sorry McD's! Btw, that's why you *never* trust a public restroom....). She slept the whole way home after that.

We haven't had that many diaper blowouts in, oh, probably a year or so. Well, I guess daycare has had to deal with one or two when she's been coming down with something, but still. So, we had fun visiting with family. But it still made for a yucky weekend.