Fun in a port-a-potty

My nephew, Wookis, and brother, Ruckers, came to visit this last weekend. Bridge Man and I decided to take the boys to a local festival. Wookis is pretty much past the potty-training stage. For the most part, he knows when it's time to let someone know that he has to use the toilet but when he gets excited and doesn't want to miss a moment, he may forget to let someone know of his dilemma. Apparently, while at the festival the giant slide was much more important than the rumble in his tummy and while going down the slide on Ruckers' lap he lost control of his bowels. Fortunately for Ruckers, everything came out solid and the mess was contained only to Wookis and his Underoos.

I took it upon myself to clean up my nephew and his little mess but help was limited to the line-up of port-a-potties on one side of the festival grounds. These rectangular cesspools have three major design flaws; (1) they are not big enough for two people even if one of the two is under three feet tall, (2) there is no plumbing to speak of, the only liquid is the blue-green (and brown) mixture at the bottom of the hole, and (3) there is no air circulation. When the three-year old with a load of poo in his pants says "yucky" upon entering the plastic coffin, you know there's a problem. This, however is only the beginning of the fiasco that is cleaning up a poopy toddler in a port-a-potty. Not the most brilliant idea, I do admit.

There is a 1'x2' rectangle of space on either side of the hole that is the toilet. I decide to make Wookis stand on this spot while I clean him up to make the most of the limited available space. I need to remove his soiled shorts without him putting his clean little baby feet on the filthy surface but he has learned to take his shoes off while changing his clothes. His mama teaches him well. I pull one pant leg down, he takes his foot out of his shoe and out of the pant leg. I make him balance on one leg until I can get his shoe back on his foot. We repeat this process three more times until we get both articles of soiled clothing off.

To make matters worse, the two-sie was not as solid as I had hoped and left a brown trail down his chunky little leg. I reach for anything to clean him up only to find one-ply toilet paper that is almost as useful as using cotton candy to clean the soiled mess. This is about the time that I realize that the drawers that left a trail down Wookis' leg also left a trail on my left arm and hand. Wookis takes this moment of my horor to find the only clean thing in the port-a-potty; a hand sanitizer dispenser. He pushes the button, squeals with delight at his find and flings it into the two feet of stale, public toilet air. It was the cleanest moment of the whole ordeal.

By now, both Wookis and I have sweat dripping from our foreheads. He is standing, half dressed, leaning against me so he won't fall or touch anything. I am holding his bag full of toddler stuff and my purse in one hand as an attempt to keep everything as uncontaminated as possible. In the other hand I hold his poopy undies. My next genus idea is to dump the poo into the hole that Little Johnny considers a toilet and try to salvage the Spiderman underpants. Let's just say that each plop made a splash big enough to make contact. I quickly gave up on this idea and let the whole thing, undies, poop, and all fall into hole.

Hurriedly, I clean up my poor Wookis. I put on his fresh undies and shorts in the same remove shoe, enter leg, put on shoe fashion, times four. I soak both of us down with hand sanitizer and get out of that plastic toilet hell. He and I walk back across the festival grounds to meet back up with our party. All the while, thoughts of sanitized poo on my arm fill my mind. Sanitized poo is still poo, no? I am ready to go home and take a nice, long, hot shower.

The moral of this delightful story? I think I'll wait a while before having any children of my own. And when I finally do, we won't leave the house until there is no chance of an incident like this.