The miracle of Thanksgiving

Chris, Max, and I went to my parents’  house in Longview, TX, for Thanksgiving. It’s roughly a four and a half hour drive from our house in Austin, but it can easily balloon to five and a half or even six when traveling with a baby. Max is still eating every three hours, but luckily, we are able to give him bottles on the road. We usually manage to make the  trip with only one stop for a feeding.

However, there was an unscheduled stop in Jacksonville, TX. Max had been fussy in the car, due to boredom and the sun getting in his eyes at times, despite my best efforts to shield them. I finally got him to sleep just as we got to Jacksonville, after many hummed renditions of Brahms’ “Lullaby”.

I was just about to tell Chris how Max had fallen asleep with one of his legs in the air when I noticed something protruding from his diaper. You see, lately, Max has started pooing only once a week. (We have told our doctor and it’s nothing to worry about.) While it is nice to have so few poopy diapers, there is usually a copious amount once the poop does land. Of course, he waited for his weekly poop until we were on the road in East Texas. Add to this the fact that we were not expecting another weekly poop, because he had just had one on Monday.

So, I took a closer look at the substance protruding from the diaper. It was getting dark out, but the light from the IPhone revealed that there was poo oozing from the diaper. Due to the fact that he had fallen asleep with his leg in the air, it had not soiled his outfit or the carrier. Also, I would not have seen it otherwise and I couldn’t smell it for some reason.

Horrified, I stage-whispered to my husband, “Hey, Chris, there’s poop coming out of his diaper!” Due to the semi-calm whispering tone of my voice, my husband at first was unsure about the urgency of the situation. We were soon in the parking lot of the post office, grossing out unsuspecting folks dropping off their holiday mail.

The only reason I can think of that my son would fall asleep in such an unprecedented position, thereby allowing us to save his outfit, his carrier, and our sanity on that long, cold drive is The Miracle of Thanksgiving. So, all ye citizens of Jacksonville, TX, take heart. When you smell that weird odor still lingering around the post office, you are actually getting a whiff of true holiday magic.

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