Story from the trenches: how to be cool when it's not

Yesterday afternoon, I took the children on a light rail ride to the city center so we could ride the merry-go-round that is up for the holiday season. Finn was thrilled, even more so by the fact that he had done it with Daddy a week ago and knew exactly which horse he wanted to ride and which one Poppie was going to ride.

All went smoothly, until we got on the train to go home, a commuter train with two seats available. Finn starting complaining about Poppie taking up too much of the seat, but really he was protesting her interaction with the kindly grandmother type sitting in the seat behind us. When Finn starting mimicking Poppie’s endearing baby babble, I tried to distract him into a more age-appropriate conversation by talking about everything we were seeing outside.

Suddenly, he grabs my hand and says ‘what’s this?’ to my recently repaired wedding ring that I haven’t worn in over a year and a half. 

‘Whose is that?’ he says loudly, ‘did you get it from that lady behind us? Did you? Why? Mom, you need to give it back to her, it’s not yours,’ he says rapidly in his best adult-telling-a-naughty-child-what-to-do voice. I can't get a word in edgewise.

I tried to convince him that it was mine, but the ball was rolling and his voice was increasing in urgency and volume. He didn’t like the ring on me, it really belonged to the lady behind us, I had to give it back, taking things from people is not nice.

And then, when his voice was at its loudest and his frustration the greatest, he proclaims he has to pee. NOW. And starts hopping from leg to leg whimpering. Loudly. The train is stopped in a tunnel. The commuters are silent. All you can hear is a little boy screaming about not wanting to wet his pants.

We ran off the train at the next stop, but the platforms don’t have toilets and I knew we wouldn’t make it very far, so I plopped Poppie on a bench and knelt down in front of Finn holding a Poppie-diaper in place. At first he threw a fit at having to even touch a Poppie-sized diaper (or a diaper in general), but it was our only choice and he knew it.

Meanwhile, the train hasn’t left the station and all the doors are open, providing an audience of commuters to our little emergency. I feel three hundred eyes on me and turn to see Poppie waving and smiling happily at them all from her perch on the bench. I smile sheepishly, but then put on my 'I am so in control of this situation' mommy face and sit Finn down on my lap to roll up his wet pants (he was right, the Poppie diaper didn't work very well).

I knew Finn needed some transition time after the incident and those people on the train had already been subjected to a lot, so we sat on the bench waiting for that train to leave. And we waited. And waited. And waited. For five more minutes. Which is a really, really, really long time to maintain my mommy-in-control-face, but good practice. Especially for a diamond ring-stealing, terrible mother who doesn't remind her son to use the bathroom when he had the chance.