Earlier today I was looking for our Halloween books that have mysteriously gone missing (my children may be hiding them from me). I’m not sure what compelled me to look in the linen closet, but with kids around you just never know. In the closet was two packages of Pull-ups that I had forgotten about. Our 4 yo grew out of Pull-ups a few months ago- yay! As I stood there holding the bags, I had a horrific flashback.

Rewind to 2-3 years ago. We were somewhat new to the neighborhood. My husband and I are both whatever the equivalent of shy is in adult language (withdrawn, timid, bashful- any of these will do). Despite this, we were invited to a holiday party by neighbors who I considered to be the leaders of the cool adults in the ‘hood. They were the proverbial “popular kids” if you will, and my husband and I were excited that we were invited. The party was epic fun. Kids of all ages ran amuck. The adults enjoyed beverages, appetizers, and good company. We were four or five drinks in when a foul stench started circulating the room. As our 18-month-old (the now 4 yo) climbed into my lap, I realized that the foul odor was coming from her diaper and, because I am always a bad adult which sometimes falls under the bad parent category as well, I DID NOT HAVE A DIAPER. The diaper bag sat at home. No one else at the party had a diaper. The hostess’s kids were way beyond diapers.

There are no words that can accurately describe the smell. Foul stench does not do it justice, it was worse than foul, it was rotten, like there was a rotting poop corpse in her diaper. And it lingered. It was like one of those farts that smell so bad you can’t get rid of it; it follows you around the room…it was like that but ten times stronger.  

The Adult thing to do would have been to scoop up my child and take her home to wipe her stinky butt. Did we do that? Nope. Why did we not do that? Well, part of it was our level of intoxication. However, we were not so drunk that I didn’t wake up the next morning completely mortified with a huge dose of mommy guilt. The poor kiddo had to wander around with a huge turd in her pants that smelled like a dead rodent for god knows how long. Why? Because we didn’t want to leave, we were having fun. We were desperate to feel like we were part of a group, that we belonged. But gradually more and more people threw disgusted looks our way and it was time to leave.

Every time I bumped into a neighbor that had been at the party, I swallowed a huge shame pill. There were times I had a hard time making eye contact I was so mortified. We were those parents, parents who let their child stink up a party because they were too busy enjoying their Adult conversations. We were probably legendary, no one was going to forget that party! I was convinced we would never be invited back, but to our surprise we received an invitation the next year. And that year I made damn sure we had the diaper bag.