Bad, bad mommy

Herein lies my most embarassing moment in my history of being a mommy. Today I took a gamble...and I lost.

I went to Jo-ann's to buy some specific flannel for a customer. Nevermind that tropical storm Fay is knocking on our door. I made my decision based on the fact that she weakened overnight and was still offshore, still pretty far away and Jo-ann's was indeed still open. I opted to avoid taking the bridge to my normal Jo-ann's and I drove the other direction so that if by chance, the weather started churning, I wouldn't be stuck somewhere because the closed the bridges down.

People were on the roads, businesses were open. Everything was fine. I made it to Jo-ann's with no problems.

Not only did I buy the one print I wanted, I got several other really cute ones. I also noticed the husqvarna lady was not busy. Aha, maybe I could do that embroidery machine demo and be entered into the contest for the free $9000 embroidery machine just like the HUGE dislay sign promised! I asked her how long it took...only a few minutes. :) I only had my 2 youngest girls with me so it seemed like the stars where lined up right. I decided to get my fabric cut and then head back her way for the demo. And that's when I noticed that my toddler pooped. And it stunk. Bad. I decided to purchase the fabric and then buy it quickly before heading to the van to change her because of course I didn't bring a diaper bag in.

So far, so good. I made my purchase. The cashier was not happy to be working and mentioned how money hungry the corporate offices were for making them work when a hurricane was on the way. And they had only made $750 so far. I told her I was glad they were opened and I bumped that number up a bit more with my purchase.

And then the sky fell down. The rain was pouring and our van was not close by. We happened to be close to the restrooms so I decided to get her out of the nasty diaper. She could go 5 minutes without a diaper, right? At home, she has just recently started potty training and for the past 2 days, she has been telling me when she had to 'beep' and 'boop.' Then my 5 year old noticed they had one of the diaper dispensing machines right there! Woohoo! Only it turned into a boohoo because it took my money but was empty.

I stood at the entrance to Jo-ann's again and it was still pouring. Hey, I had the sling with me! I decided that I would put Lily in the sling and that she could surely last 5 minutes until I saw the demo and could get my named entered. Right? That sounded better then getting soaking wet and doing the demo in the cold air conditioned building.

And that was my mistake.

She didn't want to be in the sling. The lady was showing me that awesome machine and Lily was flinging herself around trying to get out. I tried to calm her down by crouching down and letting her out of the sling. All the while, pulling her dress down so that she didn't show her hoo ha to the other customers. I told the lady that this was a bad time and that we needed to go but she reassured me that it was OK or something to that effect. So close to the finish. So close!

As promised, the demo was quick. As the lady was wrapping things up, I asked about the contest. She said 'Oh that's over!'

And that was the moment that I noticed that my Lily peed on the floor...by the lady's foot. Oh let the earth open up and swallow me whole!! It was suddenly apparently clear that I made the most idiotic decision ever. Who in their right mind would do that? I had no choice but to tell her because her shoe was perilously close to the offending puddle. I cleaned up the mess but I KNOW the lady was just waiting for me to leave so she could tell the whole horrifying story to her co-worker and any customers that she encounters today and well...for the rest of her life! "I remember that time that that toddler almost peed on my shoe at work." Yeah, people just don't forget that kind of thing.

I'm going to flog myself now. Oh thank goodness I didn't go to my regular Jo-ann's. I think I might live through this after all.