There has been a morbid fascination with my exposé of our failed camping trip (read Camping, Crying and Capsizing here). While overall we had a great time with our friends, I left out the sordid details of Bode’s near-fatal (for me, not him) bout with diarrhea for two reasons:

1) If you do not yet have children and want them, I did not want to permanently traumatize you into abstinence.

2) Likewise for those who do not like poop stories because this was the motherlode of crap.

About 2/3 of the way through our 2.5-hour drive, Bode developed diarrhea that exploded out his diaper, congregating in a delicious pool of poop that saturated his car seat and then oozed onto our leather seats below. So while Jamie and Bode were down for a long summer’s nap at the campground, the rest of my afternoon went like this:

• Beckoned Tina’s husband Mark to help me remove the car seat. And wisely so because he got a handful of crap during the process.
• Went to the laundry room and with great difficulty, removed the car seat’s cover for the first time. Was delighted to find three year’s worth of Cheerios and Nutrigrain Bars marinating in poop.
• Rinsed the cover off, threw it in the washer and bought a small box of Tide. Anticipated a nice plastic bag inside so ruthlessly tore open the box. Detergent spewed all over the laundry room. Barely had enough money for the load so was reduced to sweeping Tide up off the filthy floor with my hands.
• Ran the load and then scrubbed the car seat in the huge sink. Realized there was no way the straps would dry by morning.
• Went to adjacent bathroom, hoping to find paper towels but they only had blow dryers. Sat drying my car seat, completing ticking off a woman who had just gotten out of the shower. Felt like telling her, “”You have straight, thin hair. Rejoice in it. It’ll be dry in minutes” but instead gave her a “You are camping–why are you showering anyway” look.
• Car seat mostly dry. Made my way back to put the cover in the dryer but realized I was out of money. Scrubbed my hands from the stench but opted out of drying them because I just spent 20 minutes under the blow dryer.
• Inserted dollar bill in machine. It was rejected due to my wet hands.
• Dried dollar bill under blow dryer. Continued to receive evil looks from thin-haired woman.
• Went back to laundry room. Drama almost over. Tossed the car seat cover in dryer, closed, inserted money. Water started. Wait–WATER? Realized I had mistakenly put it in a front-loading washing machine that was the spitting image of a dryer. A washing machine with an iron-clad lock on it.
• Sat through ANOTHER wash cycle, went back to campsite. Sent Hunky Hubby back to deal with the dryer.
• Poor Hunky Hubby was up all night with diarrhea. The outhouse never smelled so good.
• Vowed to never go camping with children again. At least not when they have diarrhea.
• The End.

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As you are reading this, I am flying to Canada. Alone. With the children. Will there be a return of The Diarrhea of Death?

Pray for me, people. Pray for me. And pray for those on our flight.

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog

As backpackers, my husband Jamie and I are minimalists. We pack the bare essentials because we know we will be the ones hauling them into the backcountry.

We had also taken the same approach with car camping…until we saw the light during last weekend’s camping trip to Eleven Mile State Park, a venue that came highly recommended in Family Fun magazine and a rocky, barren venue that I would never recommend in a thousand years. Or in the eleven hundred miles it seemed to take to get us there.

Our friends Tina and Mark are Pack Everything Including the Kitchen Sink kind of campers. There is nothing wrong with this unless you are camping with them and your rations suddenly seem woefully inadequate and you find yourselves begging them to please share just a bite of their pancake, sausage and bacon breakfast to spare you the trauma of your Frosted Flakes without milk.

In addition to having a tent trailer that was stocked to the hilt, they also brought their canoe, a ton of toys, games, bubble whistles, glow-in-the-dark necklaces and a visit from the bead fairy who helped them make bracelets.

My contribution? Paper plates. A lot of them.

Oh, and both of my boys brought diarrhea. A lot of it. But I will spare you the joy of how I spent my afternoon in the park’s laundry room cleaning the pool of poop that had saturated Bode’s carseat during the drive. Jamie’s rendition of Said Illness did not hit until 11 p.m. and he had a grand ol’ time darting in and out of the tent all night and relieving himself in the outhouse.

Because those things don’t smell disgusting enough.

Our first day was windy and cold, which forced us to hunker down in Tina and Mark’s camper. Day two dawned glorious and calm so Mark announced that we would take the kids canoeing and issued a decree for anyone who wanted to come?!

Tina bowed out. She is afraid of tipping over in the canoe. Woosy.

Jamie was still nauseated from his all-night puke and poopfest. Woosy.

So I ponied up. Mark and I sailed across the water with Hadley and his son Nolan. All was going smoothly until we approached the shoreline and three motorboats departed at the same time. Three motorboats vs. one little canoe.

I will spare you the details. Actually, I don’t really remember them. All I can recollect is my end of the canoe was the first to tip and the rest soon followed. Hadley and Nolan screamed hysterically. Mark and I laughed in the same manner.

Ever the loving, concerned friend, Tina was quick to react by barking out orders from the shore:

“I’ll get the towels and Jamie, YOU TAKE THE PICTURES!”

Just not with my camera because it was in my pocket at the time. And for those who are wondering: no, it was (as in past tense) not waterproof.

Hadley speaks of the incident as if she had one foot in the grave. She was so freaked out that family therapy sessions are assuredly in her future.

Rest assured, I will bring the paper plates for that occasion, too.

Later edited: By popular demand One mommy blogger’s [humorous? painful?] path to a nervous breakdown.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog