I have a confession. I hate attending my husband’s company events. I don’t care how fancy and FREE it might be. I just don’t enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong… I love to party. But my very smart, yet slightly “scientific” husband built his career in the Bio Technology industry, which means most of his co-workers are also very smart, and even more “scientific” (a.k.a – nerdy). Just not my crowd. I am way too cool and hip and definitely an outsider to the “scientific” community. You also have to be somewhat cautious because you don’t want to be your hubby’s career limiting wife and become the talk of water coolers.
However, it’s only been two weeks since landing in San Diego and our family wknd calendar is somewhat bare so I welcomed the invitation to join my husband’s annual company picnic at the local beach. We packed the car, packed the kids, and headed off to the party. Anywhere is better than spending another day in corporate housing.
My kids were thrilled to find that the party included a huge indoor pool with the biggest bouncy house I’ve seen in my mommyhood career. We each took a child, changed them, and swim diapered the baby and went into the pool. After about 5 mins, my ADHD baby wanted to get out of the pool, and go in to the bouncy house. We only brought a small hand towel for the entire family so I decided to save the towel and just bring my baby to the bouncy house wet.
“Please dry off before entering” said the sign on the entrance of the bouncy house. I conveniently ignored the sign, and just slipped my baby in the bouncy house. There were two other much older kids jumping and having a ball. I should note here that this was my child’s first bouncy house experience. She knew she wanted to go in, but once she was placed in the bouncy house, my baby realized she didn’t know how to actually jump or bounce. She was locked in a crawling position, completely bewildered. “Bounce baby, bounce. Bounce like a bunny!” I tried coaching her from the outside. Nothing. She didn’t move a muscle. I cheered even louder for her to bounce.
That’s when I realized that she was indeed moving a muscle. She was actually peeing! Not a big deal, I thought no one would notice since she was dripping wet from the pool water anyway. But much to my dismay, she kept on peeing and peeing for what felt like an eternity. I didn’t know that toddlers can pee THAT much. She simply wouldn’t stop. What da heck? Why did I pay a fortune for that swim diaper that doesn’t even work?? I stopped cheering and tried to pretend that I didn’t notice that she was actually peeing.
“Oh my god- that baby is peeing!” One of the parents of the other kids scremed. Now, EVERYONE was looking, and the kids who were bouncing went nuts! They started screaming, and tried to get out of the bouncy house but couldn’t because my baby wouldn’t move an inch, sitting right by the door. To make the matters worse, when the kids tried to get out of the bouncy house, my baby’s pee would simply spill over to the next groove, then to the next groove. Not only did it overflow, it actually started to bubble up, and there were bubbles getting bigger and bigger from my daughter’s pee!! I didn't know pee can bubble up like that. Bubbles were EVERYWHERE!
I stood there totally flabbergasted. I went right back to that place when my first child over-flooded the toilet at his friend’s birthday party. How do I wipe down the bouncy house? How do I try to wipe down my baby? Should I pretend that she is actually NOT related to me? Frozen by shock and dread, I was totally helpless.
Now I have a brand new perspective on company picnics. Apparently I am NOT too cool and NOT too hip for the “scientific” community . . . I now have to make sure my kids also don’t become the topic of the water cooler talks. It’s a whole different level of stress. Sighh…
