There's a Reason She Was Half-Naked at Walmart, I Swear

I am not a rookie at this parenting thing, AND YET.

I should have known that when Mila fell silent something was up. She had spent the entirety of the drive from our house to Alexis' dance studio talking about a million miles an hour. She had all of the words, in part because I had told her that she was getting a surprise after we dropped Alexis off. I told her about the surprise because she was making me nuts asking the same questions over and over, so go me for figuring out how to change the subject.

But when silence fell, I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN.

But I was blaming that other thing. Of course ten minutes after we left the house, Mila realized she needed to go to the bathroom. She made it sound like an emergency, so I was focused on getting to dance. They have potties there. They're probably not as good as the library potties, but I'm willing to deal with obstacles one at a time.

We were within sight of dance when it happened. Silence turned into the sound that means your day is ruined. You had plans? TOO BAD! It's time to find a lighter so you can burn your car to the ground because the smell of kid vomit inside a car is permanent!

That's right, on our way to dance and to Mila's surprise, Mila randomly puked in the car. She was silent for about 30 seconds before she did it, but otherwise I had no hints. So, of course I didn't have a change of clothes for her. And, of course, I didn't have any baby wipes or anything to clean it.

Therein lies my rookie mistake. I'm not sure how to explain how someone who knows better manages to drive around without baby wipes, but I do. It's the dumbest little thing. Baby wipes are the best multi-purpose everything so basically they should be everywhere but NOPE. I failed.

That left me with three used Kleenex to try to wipe up all of the things.

I'll just let you sit with that sentence for a minute. It's a doozy.

Three. Used. Kleenex. I mean, really.

ANYWAY.

As luck would have it, there was a tank top in the car. It was Alexis' "Love Always Wins" tank top that she never manages to remember to take in the house, so YAY! After using three Kleenex to clean up what I could, I managed to find my way to Walmart. Why Walmart? Because where else can you take a half-naked kid shopping for a dress and some baby wipes without drawing any attention to yourself?

I mean, Mila with her WAY-too-giant tank top was better dressed than some of the people there. She was also chattier than some of the people there because apparently she wasn't really sick. Not ten seconds after I cleaned her up, the kid was ready to climb walls again. She was talking and chatting and just so dang happy because LOOK AT HER PRETTY DRESS THAT'S REALLY SISSY'S.

So we went ahead with our evening plans. And it was good, except for the part where Mila kept complaining that she was hungry but NOPE. I'm not falling for that trick ever again.

If I ever have a moment of thinking about letting Mila eat again, I just need to go smell the inside of my car. It smells of rookie mistakes and parenting nightmares.

Comments

[Robin]

I also don't take baby wipes everywhere since my son hit about age 4, but I do tend to take every extra napkin from fast food places and jam them in my glovebox so I have up to 3" of napkins in my glovebox at any given time -- which reminds me, I need to restock them. He's also never thrown up other than the rare baby spit up kind of thing he seems to take after me with a strong bodily aversion to doing so. I can't even make myself when I feel like I need to. Knock on wood.