Oh Crap.

This week we drove to Palmyra so Jess could see the Sacred Grove before she leaves New York.  It's always so beautiful and peaceful there.  

Then we stopped at Watkins Glen State Park to hike the Gorge Trail.  It's a 3 mile out and back trail with 19 waterfalls and it's absolutely breathtaking!

And if you're wondering why I titled this post the way I did, here's the story.  If you don't like stories about poop and my awesome parenting skills I suggest you stop reading now : )

Without fail, my kids seem to have the worst timing when it comes to when they have to use the bathroom.  And this hiking trip was no exception.  Typically when we hike potty breaks aren't an issue for us.  My kids have zero problemo going all natural in the woods.  However, if you notice in these pictures the trail we were on was very populated, had a river on one side of us and a rock wall on the other.  There were no trees to hide behind and take care of any business!  So like I said without fail, my sweet Porter says he has to go potty.  Great, just great.  So I wait until we see no other hikers, stand him on the ledge and let him pee into the river.  The boys thought that was super cool  : )  
Potty break, check!  

We continue on down the trail.  A few minutes later Porter tells me he has to poop.   I tell him he's just going to have to hold it until we get back because there's no where to go.  We keep hiking and I'm hoping he'll forget about it, but of course not.  He seriously needs to use the bathroom.  
So my awesome parenting skills kick in : )  I give him two choices.  One, you can hold it until we get to a bathroom.  Or two, you can go in your pants and hike with a loaf in your drawers.  Well, before long he's making a poop face and sure enough he drops a dukie in his underwear.  So now we're hiking and he's crying because there's poop in his pants.  So with my parenting super powers we take off his GAP underwear (why couldn't he have worn the Walmart underwear) and throw it in a garbage can.  We put his shorts and shoes back on and once again head off down the trail.  (Notice he's wearing two different sandals.  Another parenting point for me here, I let my kids dress themselves.  Don't you wish I were your mom?) 

We reach the end of the trail (1/2 way) without further incident.  It really is a beautiful hike and despite the potty issues we had a great time!  But wait, our fun wasn't done because sometimes little butts just can't wait.  Sure enough, as we're hiking back up the trail Porter tells me once again that he has to go potty.  We discretely pee into the river again and not five minutes later he has to poop, again!  At this point my fountain of parenting wonderfulness has dried up.  So I tell him he's out of luck we've just got to keep walking and get back to the trail head.  Well, he couldn't wait so he drops another dukie and since he has no underwear on it just falls out of his pants and lands on the trail.  A responsible person would have cleaned up after their pet, but I had NOTHING on me except for my car keys and I wasn't about to make a shiskabob out of it, there wasn't even a place to kick it, so we just let it lie and kept on walking.  
By the time we got back to the car we were all soaking wet.  I stripped Porter of ALL his clothes and gave him a wash down in the restroom & then he went camando in one of my sweatshirts for the car ride home.  Gabe stripped down to his underwear and even Jessica tooks her jeans off and rode home in her underwear.  I could only take off my bra, but even that made the ride home more comfortable.  And thankfully, no police pulled us over, it would have been akward to explain all the nudity : )

And that my friends is just another day in the life!