When I started writing for Mr Wrigglebot, I made no guarantees that my musings on baby life wouldn’t involve poo. Today I am going to follow through on that non-guarantee. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

It was a fine, sunny day in May, and the Arch-man and I found ourselves in a clothing store in South Yarra, sticking out like a sore thumb among the pure new wool pants suits and coiffured shop assistants. We were here out of necessity – to pick up a pair of shoes to go with a bridesmaid dress – but were enjoying getting in trendy peoples’ way with the pram and pretending we were savvy young professionals with cash to burn (I was an engineer, Archie a CEO).

I found the shoes I’d spotted on the store’s website and slipped them on my feet.

“What do you think, boy?” I asked Archie, who was thoughtfully sucking on a teething rusk. Cue megawatt smile.

“Hmm, well if you could stay back at the office an extra 7 minutes one night this week to cover them, that would be great.”

As fate would have it, I’d have to go to Chaddy to get the right size, and it was while we were heading back down Toorak Road to the car that I noticed a familiar smell wafting from the pram. I decided that rather than spending the next 20 minutes inhaling the smell, I’d just open up the back of the station wagon and change him there. Simple. One would think.

But once I’d begun the task, I was dismayed to discover that this was no ordinary number two….it was a Dreaded Back Poo. (For the uninitiated, this is a masterful work a baby performs while sitting down, which travels out of the nappy and up their back, and are proof that butt cracks do serve a practical purpose. A DBP can strike fear into the heart of even the most competent and experienced mother when in public places. I’ve even heard of variations that have reached the neck.)

I took a deep breath and did my best to pull off his sullied singlet and bodysuit cleanly but couldn’t help spreading the joy up one of his arms and onto the change mat.

‘Geez, it’s seriously going to take a whole packet of wipes to clean this one up!’, I thought to myself. But when I reached into the wipes container, my heart quailed within me….

There were none. Zilch. No wipes. No cloths, no facewashers and no towels either. Nothing.

I stared in sudden panic at the moving disaster zone before me, who was now spreading the joy all over himself, all over his change mat, on various objects in the boot, and had somehow grabbed hold of the dirty nappy and was gleefully waving it around above his head. My brain decided this one was too hard, and deserted me. I was unable to decide whether to laugh or cry. And I had poo on me. All during lunch hour on Chapel street in full, clear view of the real savvy young professionals clickitty-clacking along the footpath right past one side of the car, while slow-moving traffic crept by on the other. I wondered if now was an appropriate time for a nervous breakdown.

But there’s something that happens when one becomes a mum; when something seems impossible, you find a way, and at that very moment a small voice inside me gently prompted, “The nappies…. uuuuse the nappieeeees!!”

I scrabbled through the nappy bag and lo and behold! Five glorious nappies! I summoned all my power and skill to clean off everything to an acceptable degree with just the nappies and got us both back in the car, where I spent the next 10 minutes using up an entire bottle of hand sanitiser. Better to look obsessive-compulsive than pooey.

Once I recovered myself I decided, DBP or no DBP, I wasn’t driving to South Yarra to return home shoe-less. So we did end up going the extra mile to Chaddy, where I tried to touch as few things as possible.

There were a number of things I learned from this experience: a) always keep an industrial-sized packet of wipes in the car, and b) always wash your hands thoroughly before eating if you work in retail… especially if you serve a mum.

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baby, mums life by julie