Escaping a Burning Building

I posted last week that MyLove and I firmly believe that kids shouldn't prevent you from traveling. I seriously rethought that statement yesterday...the next few days of posts will cover our journey home.

We had an AWESOME week with the fam in Colorado. But the last three days of the trip were work, and being that things were not going well I was working on 4 to 5 hours of sleep. By the third day, yesterday, I was beat and finally had the opportunity to sleep in. At around 7:30 am Bubba hobbled over bleary eyed from the hotel pull out couch, got 2 inches from my face, and whispered loudly, "Dada, I gotta go pee pee."

"Well go pee pee then Bubba!" was all I could muster while opening one eye. Bubba headed half-way to the bathroom with that stiff legged gate that is characteristic of one thing...wet pants. He paused, turned around and walked back all wiggly. "Dada, I peeped (there is not an "e" missing from that word) in my bed."

"I'm so freakin' tired!" was all I could think, but I dragged my still asleep butt out of bed to change his pants. What I quickly realized was the stiff legged jittery walk was due to the fact he was holding the other half of his pee in after waking up half way into the act.

Let us take a moment to realize what a feat that is for a 3 year old. I can't remember the last time I had bodily fluid involuntarily escape while asleep (5 years ago), but I'm sure once it started there would be no stopping it. Next time you take a pee, stop the flow and try and walk around for 2 minutes without it bursting like Niagara Falls while you tremble uncontrollably hyperventilating.

I peeled his pee soaked pants, shirt, and underpants off only to watch his naked self pee for 2 minutes straight. I don't remember him drinking a keg of beer the night before, but I was really tired.

I pondered whether to go back to bed or put him in the shower. I opted for the shower since I was already up and didn't want to sit next to him on the plane smelling like a public bathroom at the beach.

To set the stage he was already pissed about being awake and peeing the bed, and did not want to take a shower with daddy. Normally he finds showering with me intriguing given all the similar body parts covered in hair. And let me say a man can never get enough of another man saying how much bigger your "parts" are, even if that other man is 3.

I wrestled him into the shower and was forced to hold him so to prevent him from scrambling out of the tub. As I completed a rather impressive one handed thick lather over his body, the fire alarm went off. And not the accidental steam from your shower in your room alarm. The deafening one that goes off when the entire building is in evacuation mode. I'm buck naked holding a greased-pig-slippery-sud-soaked toddler while half asleep trying to decide if this is the real deal or some glitch in the alarm system. After a quick mental flash of me attempting to escape a burning building while naked with naked boy in tow I decided to treat it like the real deal.

At this point Bubba is covering his ears and yelling, "Maaaake it stoooop daaadaaa!" while trying to rinse him off. I shut the water off and threw a towel around him and jumped out of the bathroom in my birthday suit while pushing him with hands still over his ears. I grabbed my clothes from the previous night while searching for my glasses.

I'm almost legally blind so me hopping around with one leg in my jeans squinting in the dark doing wide sweeping motions over the bathroom counter for my glasses I'm sure look hilarious at the time. Turning on the light escaped me as a good idea at the time.

Bubba was standing stark naked and wet turning circles in the middle of room towel at his feet with hands over his ears still yelling, "Maaaake it stoooop!"

I threw on Bubba's cloths while MyLove threw on some pants one-handed holding SweetPea in the other. I will say I took 30 seconds to grab my laptop bag and phone before pushing Bubba out the door. Judge me when you're in the position of loosing a decade of work history.

Because I have to try and be in control I also took 10 seconds to argue which would be the best direction for a stairway...and because I'm an idiot. MyLove barked at me, "There are stairways at both ends of the hallway, come on!"

Our exit into the parking lot was met with "Oh, she has a baby!" No hotel employees ushering us to safety. No distraught hotel guests begging to get back in to rescue their laptop. No fire engines racing to the scene ready to save the lives of dozens of trapped guests. I'm thinking the building is burning down and these people are ogling over the extreme cuteness of SweetPea.

They had it way more together than me who was sweating profusely from carrying Bubba down five flights of stairs and had phone in hand ready to text everyone in my address book to let them know we made it out okay...because I was sure our tiny hotel fire was being covered by CNN and all our friends who didn't know we were staying there would be worried.

Anyway, the hotel did not burn to the ground, but someone did burn some toast.

Stay tuned for part two of the travels home.