So this weekend I had a one-day conference a couple of hours away (albeit in a different country). I posted a note online on a message board looking for a babysitter for the fusspot, but when JD (who is not the cautious one when it comes to her) asked: "You're really going to leave our baby with someone you've never met before in a foreign country? Someone you have no reference for at all?" I realized I needed a new plan.
And I found one which was perfect for the fusspot. I offered to pay for a good friend to take her 2 kids to the zoo in this unstated little country in exchange for bringing along my fusspot. Safe, secure, convenient.
Except, of course, she couldn't get out of the house early enough to just meet us there. Fine.
So the morning of the conference the fusspot and I left the house at 6:03 am. We walked all the way to the train station because I live in a tiny enough town that the buses don't run that early. We took a train to my friend's house, dropped the fusspot, sprinted back to the train station and got myself to the conference by 10 am. At 4 pm I sprinted from the conference to a bus, took a train to another city, picked up the fusspot at the zoo entrance, train back to conference-city, bus, reception at someone's apartment, and then we went out to a fancy dinner. At 8 pm.
Where there was no high chair, of course. The fusspot by this point had been up since 6 am. I did not have time to pump at the conference so I really wanted to feed her and she really wanted to eat. And we were seated next to one of the grumpiest, important men in my field of work. In a fancy restaurant.
Sitting semi-unclad at a Pa.ris.ian bistro has nothing on a B.el.gi.an fancy (did I mention it was fancy? think $30-40 entres) restaurant next to a professor who will probably be reviewing my work in the near future. But it worked, the fusspot fell asleep and I transferred her to her stroller.
And if only that were the end of the story. But twice she was woken up by people knocking into her stroller and I had to nurse her back to sleep. And then she woke up when we left the restaurant at 11 pm (yup, 11) and sleepily smiled at everyone and they all exclaimed what a good baby she was. And I was so proud of myself on the walk to the hotel (which also had no high chair at breakfast - more on the search for high chairs in Europe later).
And then at midnight when we were safely in the quiet of our own hotel room I took the fusspot out of her stroller ... and her diaper had leaked poo all over everything. Her onesie. Her back. The blanket. The bib. The stuffed animal. And that's when I knew I was the luckiest girl in the world - because I didn't pick my baby up when we left the restaurant and thus didn't have to deal with the mess in front of a crowd of old, grumpy men. Instead I am deeply thankful that I just let her sit in her own poo for an hour ... or possibly three?
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