Poop and Carpet

We have lots of wood flooring in our house, in the entryway, living room, dining room, on the stairs, and in the upstairs hallway, but I don't quite understand why. The people who lived here before us put the wood floors in, and they had three small children. So far, I don't see how wood is compatible with kids. I can already tell that Kiren is going to bump his head and fall down quite a bit on his way from rolling to crawling to walking, and the wood floors seem like a spectacular way to cause larger than necessary bruises. Yes, the floors are pretty (well, they were before we let our dog scratch them chasing her toys), but they are fairly impractical.

That said, I am definitely not replacing them. I get that they are really expensive, and desirable, and replacing them is just silly. Instead, I decided to replace the 5x8 rug in our living room with a larger rug or piece of carpet. I wanted something neutral, bound on the edges, and I wanted it to be 12x15 to give Kiren more carpeted space because I anticipate his attempts at being really mobile are just around the corner.

I struck out on the internet, so a couple of Sundays ago, I set out to find a carpet or rug at a local store. Against my better judgment, I decided to take a slightly fussy Kiren with me so Vivek could get some work done.

As an aside, it was Kiren's first ride in his brand new, big boy car seat. We bought a convertible Britax Marathon because he is now too tall for his infant carrier type car seat (it was his second seat, which had a 29 inch limit; his first maxed out at 26 inches. Luckily we borrowed both of them, so the britax is the first one we've had to buy).

When we arrived at the carpet store, I started to get Kiren out of his car seat, and I smelled something fairly nasty. But he was wearing navy, and I didn't see anything amiss, so I decided to chalk it up to farting. And then, I held him against my shirt, and I found the source of the stinky-ness. By then it was too late; I had a huge yellow poop spot on my shirt. And Kiren managed to inaugurate his new car seat too, of course. By now, Kiren was crying very loudly, so I set up for a backseat diaper change. I am not sure how I did it because I was trying to hold him as far away from me as possible, but somehow I managed. Approximately 17 wipes later and after a whole lotta screaming, Kiren had a new outfit on, and I had done all I could to minimize the shirt spot (not much). I contemplated going home, but I decided that I'd come this far. Rather, I walked all over the store and just held Kiren over the poop spot. I don't think the salesman noticed, but my arm was killing me because I couldn't change sides.

All's well that ends well because I did manage to find a great carpet remnant that the store agreed to bind and deliver a couple of weeks later. But I have to say I could live a long time without being pooped on in public again.