Being Humbled, One Child At A Time
- hillaryflight
- Mar 1
- 7 min read
From the moment your feet are in the stirrups to when you are apologising to the cashier who has just been complimented by your child on her mustache, children have a way of humbling us. I used to laugh at other parents’ stories of the ruthlessness of their children’s actions and public opinions. The awkward questions that they insist on asking at full volume and then repeat louder when you try to ignore. I have learned since becoming a parent myself that I was naïve to think I would never be flushed in the face at the hands of a toddler. To those who ever wished the floor would swallow them up, I too have been victimized by my children’s complete lack of social awareness. So, buckle up as I relive the trauma of this incredibly embarrassing event that transpired resulting in a complete stranger being in a bathroom stall with a defeated and mostly naked me.
It was the last of the hot summer weather in 2023 and my children were two and ten months old. We were very much on the struggle bus as my youngest was working on his very first tooth. This detail is important to the story. I was very much low on sleep, patience, and apparently diapers as I realised when I pulled the last one out of the box. I searched the house, thinking surely there was another stack tucked away somewhere in an overnight bag we admittedly never unpack. I came up empty. My days plan of vegetating while Miss Rachel did the co-parenting from a screen quickly changed and the process of getting two overtired teething children loaded into the car began. Looking back, I feel it would have been easier to bite the bullet and potty train them both right then and there, than it was to take this seemingly routine trip to get the diapers.
I had zero intentions on getting dressed that day and I was wearing milk-stained pajamas, so I ran upstairs and threw on an old romper, my first mistake. I rushed to get the kids out the door which meant taking my daughter away from her colouring, so I thought. She surprisingly didn’t object which should have been a red flag now that I think about it, but I took the win and hurried her to the porch. In a tizzy I failed to notice the little blue marker she so stealthily snuck into the car seat with her. She had big plans. A vision, and this uninterrupted drive was just the opportunity she had been so patiently waiting for. Between the lack of sleep the few nights prior, and the fact I had two diapered children with no clean back ups to change into this was a mission to get in and get out as quickly as possible. My children obviously sensed my urgency and quietly plotted with one another to do whatever it took to drag this out. I spent the drive trying to keep myself awake, bopping to Snoop Dogs children’s album. Yes, Snoop Dog has a children’s album, and we are big fans.
We pull into Walmart parking lot after a twenty-minute drive of rapping affirmations, and like clockwork I hear the shrill cries of a hungry baby. I would usually nurse him in the car before heading inside but I had been in such a rush to leave I didn’t use the washroom and as a breastfeeding mother in the late August heat I had been chugging water the entire drive down. I had to get inside as soon as possible. I went straight to the trunk to retrieve my tank on wheels that was my Bob double stroller. A must for anyone with multiple tiny humans. I took them everywhere with me and once one became mobile, they had to be contained. When opening the back door to retrieve first said tiny human, I found my very proud, very blue two-year-old daughter. The marker she had successfully snuck into the car seat had been used to turn her hands, arms, and the majority of her face a tropical shade of ocean blue. Nice. While her brother screamed for milk, and I attempted to not relieve myself on the busy parking lot I tried and failed to wipe the marker off her smiling face. I couldn’t waste another second, so I accepted it and loaded my child who looked like a base player from The Blue Man Group into her side of the stroller. I scooped up my grouchy baby and sat him beside her, power walking to the bathroom I prayed was vacant.
I apologised my way into the busy bathroom and did what most outnumbered mothers do and wheeled my wide load of youngsters into the handicap stall. At this point my baby had lost his marbles and I knew it was time to multitask. What mother hasn’t breastfed on a public toilet right? I was in a romper anyway, so it all must come down. In my panic to leave the parking lot I missed an important step and didn’t clip miss Blues Clues into the stroller. Rookie mistake. The minute I sat down to empty my bladder, and my milk jugs she slithered effortlessly out of the stroller and onto the dirty bathroom floor. I pleaded with her not to touch anything, and she very much took this as a challenge. Every surface in that stall was about to get a once over. With one arm holding my baby, and my ankles surrounded by my entire outfit I sat disgusted, as my child did an interpretive breakdance before my eyes. I made a mental note to bath her as soon as we got home. Like I had a choice anyway, she looked like the blueberry girl from Willy Wonka rolling around the filthy tile. While eye level to my feet, she noted the romper I had discarded in order to use the toilet and took this as an invitation to remove her own shirt. In frustration from the day’s events so far, I raised my voice to her to stop undressing and this did not sit well with her. For anyone wondering, PMS starts at two years old, I am sure of it. This was the end of the world. She was overtired and now offended. Just picture Will Ferrell in Stepbrothers. This bathroom stall was a prison. I shushed her as lovingly as I could as an attempt to somehow reverse the terrible twos tantrum I sensed I had put into affect. What happened next, I relive in slow motion, however it took a mere thirty seconds for her to pull this one off. With the speed of a ninja, she found the door handle and every decision I made leading up to that point flashed before my eyes. She wouldn’t. The eye contact we made in that moment confirmed that indeed she would. The stall door swung open, and I watched helplessly as my daughter took off, my dignity in hand toward the bathroom full of strangers. Jesus take the wheel. Luckily, this is a story of extreme embarrassment, not a missing persons case, as there was a lady drying her hands who sprung to action. A true hero. I just wish she didn’t have to live with the images she was witness to that day.
Hearing the footsteps come toward the opened stall I did what I could to become decent. But with only seconds to unlatch my baby and pull my romper from the floor this was not possible. The poor woman, whose face will forever be burned in my brain picked up my crying, shirtless Smurfette and carried her to the stall where I stand bare with my clothes around my feet and my baby on my chest. We locked eyes, defeat in mine, pity in hers. As I tensed and shamefully reached for my child, yelling apologies across the stall full of stroller, and children’s clothing, my baby found the tooth he had been suffering to cut for a week and sunk it into me. A pain I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. It's like he sensed his sister had completed her role in the mission and he was ready to take the baton. I shrieked in agony and the woman slammed the stall door shut, either attempting to give back my privacy or to escape the udder chaos she walked into. I wonder if she knows I think of her every time I go in the Walmart bathroom. I collected myself and laid shark boy into the stroller and took a very slow deep breath before doing the same with my little escape artist. I should have B lined it to the pharmacy and checked my blood pressure, as I'm certain it would have set a record. I finally pulled my romper back up over my shoulders and cried for just a few moments. I earned it. Everyone else did it. All three of us then dried our tears, washed our hands, arms, stomachs.. whatever touched the disgusting bathroom floor. Then we made way to the back of the store to get the diapers we came for, crossing my fingers I didn’t bump into the woman who got more than she bargained for on her grocery trip. My daughter's face blue, mine red, and my little vampire settled and satisfied with a belly full of milk from our chaotic toilet restaurant.
I don’t wish struggle on anyone, especially my children. But I picture someday, if she ever decides to start a family, my daughter is running errands in a busy store accompanied by her young children. Maybe just maybe she will be sitting to relieve herself with a baby on her lap. Just when she lets her guard down, oh to to be a fly on the wall when her toddler finds that door handle.
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