Day 308.

We went to the park after preschool today, to have a picnic and play. It turned out to be quite the gorgeous day, weather-wise. It had said 40's and cloudy, but when we got to the park it was sunny and 50's. Beautiful. So, we basically didn't eat and played our hearts out - for about 20 minutes, when Dylan suddenly announced in the pirate ship that "I have to go poopies!"

I am grateful to have made it to the bathroom.

This feat is not to be taken lightly. We were in a very large park, and I panicked, not knowing where we would go to make this happen. Usually when Dylan finally accepts that she needs to go to the bathroom and tells me, we don't have much time. So, I threw everything in the stroller (including Noah - Dylan needed to walk to help "hold it") and we rushed to the park's bathroom - a good several hundred feet away. Well, we got there and LOCKED! Ugghhh. She would start walking faster and it would make her have to go more, so we had to find this balance of quick walking without going too fast to make her go right there in the middle of the park. In a split decision, I decided we'd take our chances with the Jewish Community Center, knowing it was locked, but hoping they would take pity on us (What would I say, I wondered - my daughter is going to poop her pants...PLEASE?!?!?!?). Lucky for us, they quickly buzzed us in and didn't even ask why we were there. We MADE IT! And we even got to sit there for 10 minutes (that's about how long the process takes with Dylan because you have to tell stories) in an immaculately clean bathroom, as opposed to a park district hell hole.

So for all those who think this is a ridiculous thing to be grateful for, you must have never cleaned up a 4 year old's poop-filled underpants...and you surely have never made them walk 5 blocks home in them.