Why oh why do I share these things with you?

Over at the Rocking Pony, she's having a neat giveaway from her super-cute Etsy store.

The twist is that in order to enter, you have to share your most embarassing moment.

Here is mine.

Warning: This contains a potty-training story. I know there are some folks who run screaming from the room when the topic comes up, so I'm pausing here to give you fair warning.

When the big kids were just shy of 2, they were potty trained, dh was deployed and I was working towards a position I wanted dearly. All these bits of information play a role in this little tale.

As part of obtaining that position, I met with a friend who was in charge of the process. We both had kids (hers were a bit older than mine), so we met in the children's section of a library where we could pull up a seat, discuss work and our kids could play.

At that point, I was trying to teach myself not to watch the kids like a hawk. They were secure independent little things and I wanted to help foster that independence. Problem is, I also wanted to follow them around making sure they didn't destroy anything. I was in the process of finding a healthy balance. Girl2, however, was in the process of exploiting those moments when my eyes weren't on her.

At one point, I turned around to find that my youngest daughter had apparently pulled her underwear aside (she was wearing a dress), squated and pooped...on the floor...the CARPETED floor...in the middle of the library. She couldn't leave it at that. Oh no! She had to WALK THROUGH IT over and over again tracking poop EVERYWHERE and grinding it into the carpet. Did I mention she was wearing sandals? So it was also all over her little feet.

I was MORTIFIED. After lots of expletives, I scooped her up and ran to the bathroom. There was no way to clean her sandals. No amount of scrubbing helped. I managed to sit her in the sink and wash her off as best as I could, but wouldn't you know it, the bathroom there had ditched paper towels in favor of one of those blowers. I needed the towels to scrub and to dry her little bum. I'm not putting my baby's bum up to a hot dryer even if she did just track poop all over the library's carpeted floor.

G-d bless that friend I was meeting with. She checked on us and then brought us some paper towels. She watched Girl1 along with her kids so that I could focus on (aka scrub) Girl2. And I will never ever be able to thank her enough for making the library staff aware of the problem. The thought of having to go up to them and announce, "My child pooped on your floor. Yeah and then stomped through it. It's everywhere," made me want to cry. The fact that she did it for me leaves me forever in her debt.

Of course this library didn't own a carpet cleaner. I had planned on cleaning up the mess, assuming they had some device with which to shampoo it. Nope. What they had was some sort of powder and more paper towels. I offered to clean it, but they refused.

At that point, I was ready to cry. My husband had been away for months, this position I wanted was on the line and my daughter went and pooped on the floor. And then walked through it and went for a walk in the wild wild world thereby tracking it EVERYWHERE.

Mortified really isn't a strong enough word. I have never been back to that children's area since and I don't know if I ever could. Well, maybe when she's a teenager, if she drives me nuts, I'll pack her and some of her friends up and head out there where I can tell them this story. :-)