Yes, of course there’s a reason my baby was at the bus stop mostly naked today.

Let me start by saying I’m a pretty laid back mom. My baby has yet to wear shoes, and he’s already approaching 7 months old. He rarely wears anything more restrictive than knits. He has been to church in his jammies. So clearly I’m not a stickler for formal clothing for infants. But I do like to have at least something over his diaper if we’re going out. Even to the bus stop.

It started when I set the baby down in his crib to play for a couple of minutes, while I went out to check for eggs.

We aren’t out in the country; if you left between rush hours you could get from our house to the heart of Atlanta in about 25 minutes. We live in a subdivision without an HOA, so we are allowed to have backyard chickens. They weren’t permitted a couple years ago when we got them, but that’s another story.

These now-legal chickens have been super lame this summer and are giving us anywhere between zero and two eggs each day, because who knows why. We have 5 hens. If you don’t know how they’re supposed to work, they should typically give one egg per hen per day. Thus we should be getting 3-5 eggs every day, because that’s really how many our family typically eats in a day. But no, we’re having to buy eggs at the store. 

When I went out there, I noticed they were out of food and water, because they’re not only defective, they’re gluttonous and stupid and knock over their water almost daily.

Before going back with fresh food, I stepped in and checked the baby monitor. Baby is still sitting happily in his crib, playing. The bus would be here in about 10 minutes. That’s plenty of time.

It’s so cool and breezy. It’s like Fall is really going to come. Maybe not today, but soon. I could wear long sleeves and be comfortable.

The chicken food is right next to the dog food. Might as well feed the dogs, since I forgot to feed them earlier.

Unless I’m a chicken coop ninja (and some days I’m a ninja) I can’t put more feed into the chicken coop without opening the gate enough that they will all escape into the yard. This is their favorite thing in the world to do.

But I hear a hawk. This hawk has recently taken to scoping out our chickens. I’ll have to leave a dog out to guard them.

So I put one dog bowl down in the house and one dog bowl down outside. This is because one dog likes to jump over or shimmy under or push through or transmogrify herself somehow out of the fence after other dogs, walkers, or kids getting off the bus. So there are certain times we can’t let her outside. Like most of the time. The other dog is too lazy old and dignified to push her way through the fence.

diaper time

One dog in, one dog out. Baby still sitting up and content.

I open the chicken coop, the hens come wriggling out, and take off at a mad waddle like a bunch of fat tyrannosaurs to the shade under the back porch to catch all the bugs that hang out under there.

Fill the food, hang it up; fill the water, hang it up; come inside, wash my hands.

The baby is fussing. The bus alarm is going off on my phone. I have about 3 minutes to get outside. Thankfully the bus stop is right across the street.

I gather the little boy out of his crib, and … his seat feels extra warm. And he smells extra raunchy.

Oh, and he has just started eating solids. It’s obvious.

Yep–it’s a blowout. His clothes are affected, too. And I have about 2 minutes.

So, yeah, 7 wipes later, he’s clean and re-diapered. And there’s the bus. And that’s why my baby was at the bus stop in only his diaper. At least it was a clean diaper.