The Story That Must Be Told

Nicole doesn’t want me to tell this story, but I have to.

We are enjoying our final evening of our too-short vacation. Our hotel room has a huge tub in it, big enough for three adults or two adults and two mini people or four or five mini people. The girls love being in tubs (by “love” I mean they don’t scream their heads off) so taking a bath together seems like a nice way to end our trip. Normally I bathe the girls (one at a time) by myself in our only-good-for-one-adult tub, because those baby tubs are too annoying. It’s nice to have some adult company for a change.

We fill up the tub, put in baby-friendly bubbles and carefully climb in. We are each holding a baby and enjoying the cleansing, scream-free moments when little bubbles rise to the surface. Ha Ha, I say, Miss Avery farted. It’s cute, in the water and all, with the bubbles, and that look of complete blankness on her mini face. But then rising to the surface are some decidedly not bubble-like things. She didn’t fart. She pooped. And baby poop is not a solid thing. Almost instantly little brown flakey flecks spread throughout the water. Contamination in mere moments. Avery has no idea what happened and looks happy as a clam and perhaps a bit relieved. We were out of the tub in a flash, running around naked with two screaming babies who wanted to know why they were wrenched so cruelly from the womb-like tub.

I don’t want to go home tomorrow.

I am on the last chapter of Harry Potter. I can’t wait to see how this mess ends.

Pictured above are some vacation images: On top are the four of us at the wedding. I like this picture because I love the way Nicole is holding Avery. We are standing on a hill, and Nicole is standing into the incline, but it looks like she is offering up Avery, like a cut of meat. And if she spoke Nicole would have an accent and say something like “Itsa veddy nice cut.” That’s what I hear in my head. The middle picture is a sour cream donut from Hole In One on Cape Cod. We also sampled the Boston Cream donuts, thinking that the closer we are to Boston, the better a Boston Cream donut must be. Turns out the donuts from a random Jersey City grocery store still win out as our favorite. I’m happy to spend my life having these BCD (Boston Cream Donut) smackdowns. On the bottom is a picture of Avery in the outfit that inspired the song “My Name is Avery and I Have a Belly That is Like an Old Man’s.” Another lyric is: “I stand real tall and I wear my pants hiked up to my chest.” It is sung in a low, low, low voice and it is sorta like the kind of song you would hear on a porch down south sung by some old men with homemade instruments. We make these songs up every day.

Lots more pictures are posted on my picture website.