Zoo Poop & Other Nashvillian Adventures

Out for Breakfast in Nashville

We recently took a trip to visit my mom and step-dad down in Nashville, Tennessee.  While on the way down, we swung by my maternal grandparent's house - known as Grumpa and Grandma Barb in our family - to introduce them to Quincy.  Boy, was it fun!  Quincy was absolutely enthralled with Grumpa.

(Great) Grumpa, Quincy, & Maggie

(Great) Grandma Barb & Quincy

What a great trip we had!  It was great to play (and lose horrifically) at euchre, go swimming at the local pool, catch up on all things family, and we even made it to the Nashville Zoo.

Grandma Kate & Quincy

Grandpa Mark & Quincy

Loveless Café - Mark, Brad, Maggie, Quincy

Naptime with Grandma Kate

The Boys in Shades - Brad, Grandpa Mark, & Quincy

Since it was a pretty warm day when we went to the zoo - it was in the high 90's, though in the parking lot the car read 103˚ - we made sure to load up on water, sunscreen, wear hats, and seemed to be quite the pack rats when heading through the zoo gates.  We initially started with Quincy in the front pack, but also brought the stroller in case the whole sweaty-baby-glued-to-your-abdomen-in-stiflingly-hot-weather got to be too much.  Surprisingly, it wasn't the heat that made us switch to the stroller.

Quincy & Daddy at the Zoo!

While only at the second exhibit of the day - I believe it was an outdoor space with monkeys - Brad started to point at me and Quincy exclaiming, "Maggie!  Holy cow, Maggie!"  Thinking that I had pulled Quincy's legs through one hole of the front pack, he was choking, or something worse, I got a bit freaked out.  Only when he walked closer to us with a hand gingerly extended did I look down and see baby poop dripping out the side of the front pack.  Yes, poop was literally dripping off the front pack.  You can say it: GROSS.

We grabbed for some wipes, and my mom and I headed to the nearest restroom.  Remarkably, my shirt was unscathed, but the same couldn't be said for Quincy, the front pack, or his shirt.  Upon entering the bathroom, we discovered there wasn't a changing table (yes, a zoo loaded with kids and parents, with no changing table in sight, not even hidden in one of the bathroom stalls - I checked!)  We laid out the changing pad from the diaper bag on the narrow counter, and carefully started in on the clean-up... until we ran out of wipes.  Pulling toilet paper out of one of the stalls, we did our best to clear out the disastrous diaper (which, for all of you that use cloth diapers know, we had to place all the dirty stuff in our wet back, and bring it with us for the rest of the day), and then joined Brad and Grandpa back outside.

Maggie, Brad, Grandpa Mark, & Quincy

Needless to say, this has become the Zoo Poop Story, and the saga continues...


If you had been peeking through my blinds this morning (not that I am encouraging you to do so), you would have seen a topless mom wearing only pajama bottoms, holding onto a naked baby with just a burp cloth wrapped around his bottom, digging through the diaper bag to get another diaper.  Now, let me explain...


It all started when Quincy woke up early from his morning nap, when I was attempting to jump in the shower.  I scooped him up from the crib after it was evident he wasn't going back to sleep, didn't bother changing him since his diaper had recently been changed, and put him in his bouncy seat in the bathroom so I could shower.  When I reached for the buckle, it had something on it that was either squash or poop (this should have sent a warning signal through my brain, but alas, it did not).


Puzzled, I couldn't figure out how there would be squash on his bouncy seat, so I scooped him up, only to discover he had had a Zoo Poop Blow-Out Diaper, and a welt of poop was also caked on my shirt from when I had first picked him up from the crib.  I brought him to the changing table, took off my poop shirt so as not to spread the massacre of poop to other places in the house, scraped off the poop from his thigh (which had exploded out the side of his diaper), then went to change the real bombshell.  Once he was wiped down, I discovered we were out of diapers in his room, and realized the closest one was in the diaper bag over in the living room.  What was a girl to do?  I paused for a second, then wrapped a burp rag around his bottom, and walked quickly - laughing and topless - to the diaper bag for a new one.

He has since then been changed successfully, I've been able to shower and put a complete outfit on, and the bouncy seat cover is being washed as we speak.


Hope you're having a good Monday - we sure are!


~M