Homeless Love & Delinquent Parentling

As my maternity leave winds to a close I've been frantically trying to wrap up all the things on my to-do list that I've been ignoring for the last 2.5 months. Ignoring is easy when you can always find something else to do...like clean up the never ending mess of poop. So yesterday since the weather was warm (and because I don't fit into my suits for work) we took a walk down to the stationary store to check out the progress of the birth announcements. Yes I realize my child is almost 3 months old, shut it.

Chestnut Street in the low teens is a scary place. Dirty dollar stores, cheap clothes and a really large liquor store. It makes for a really special crowd of people. It's starting go through a bit of a renaissance...maybe that's a bit overstated but the gayborhood is starting to expand into scary town and as a result there's a cute stationary store.

So here I am rolling along with my curb climbing urban stroller when I see two bums yelling at each other in front of a food truck. Unfortunately this is going on about 20 feet in front of me and I have no where to go but straight ahead. As I powered through the mess all I could smell was poop. These dudes smelled like a big pile of poop. I have become a connoisseur of poop and this was more like the dog variety...like a dog that has been sleeping in its own poop for a few weeks. Ugh...keep moving..breathe through mouth.

So as I'm passing by the poop man he stops what he's doing and yells "DAMN". I can't be sure at this point if that was directed at me or the other poop man but either way I'm not stopping or turning around. The yelling continues and this is when I become acutely aware of the fact that the comment is directed at me. Just "DAMN" over and over really loud and drawn out. I'm not sure if I should start running or be flattered. After all, this girl is 10/15 lbs from her fighting weight so she'll take all the compliments she can get. (Yes, even when it's from a scary homeless man that smells like poop.)

Thankfully the stationary store was only a few hundred feet away so I was soon surrounded by the comforting glow of Cranes stationary and Montblanc pens.

The child was being reasonably well behaved for the shopping excursion and that's when I noticed the tell tale grin that was on her face. She was down there in that cute little stroller sleeping bag shitting her brains out. When we got home I was left with the delightful task of cleaning up the poop. At first I though the diaper had contained the mess but as I was redressing her I noticed a spot of yellow on the waistband of her little pants. I pondered my next step.

I could...
A. Pull off all her clothing (it was not a snap up) and put her in a new outfit then undress her in a few hours to give her a bath and put on another new outfit OR,
B. Pretend that I don't see the yellow poo smear, return her to the pants and then give her a bath in a few hours and then put her in a new outfit.

Clearly any good mother would have chosen A. I am clearly not a good mother and so I decided that the poo mark was barely noticeable (and on the inside I might add) and I was saving the environment somehow by conserving the water & electricity required to wash an additional onesie.

Some day future generations will thank me...