At the end of the presentation, Kevin and I headed for the sea otter pool which had just opened a couple of weeks before. He was really excited to see it. When I was in high school, my family had taken a vacation to the Pacific Northwest and I had seen sea otters in the wild there. I thought they were pretty cute and amusing, but the set up at the zoo was spectacular and there were so many of them and they were incredibly active. It was like watching a live action cartoon. I think we spent a half hour just watching them and laughing. As fun as the otters were, I kept looking over at Kevin because the pure happiness on his face choked me up. I wished his mom could be with us to see this. So, I took out my phone and shot a quick surprise picture of Kevin and sent it to Terri.

All of a sudden Kevin’s eyes opened wide and he said, “Carrie, I’ve got to get to the bathroom fast!”

I began rolling him in the direction of the nearest restroom immediately. As we walked I asked him, “Do you feel okay?”

“Yeah,” he replied, “I just like all of a sudden felt an incredible need to go to the bathroom.”

“Pee or poop?” I asked.

“Pee.” he said

So, it wasn’t the celiac acting up, that was a relief. But I was puzzled, because Kevin never had accidents during the day.

“You didn’t know you need to go?” I asked him.

“No…could you just hurry? Please!”

“Sure, sure,” I said.

We got to the restroom which had a family bathroom and I rolled Kevin in and bent over to take him out of the stroller. When I saw tears rolling down his face. “We’re too late,” he whispered.

“Oh, sweetie, don’t cry. These things happen.” I said as I took him out of the stroller and put sat him up on the changing station. He was sobbing by now so I let him sit there for a minute and rubbed his back. I kissed him on the top of his head and just kept saying. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” until he calmed down.

When he was calm, I said, “What’s the matter, darling? I thought you liked pretending to be a little boy.”

His voice caught in his throat. “I liked pretending. This was real. I didn’t know I needed to go until it was too late. I’m not a baby. I’m not!” and the tears began again.

“I know, I know.” I said as I went back to rubbing his back. “I don’t know what happened just now. But I know you’re not a baby.”

He had calmed down considerable by now. So I smiled at him and said, “Now that we’ve established that you’re not a baby. Can I change your diaper?”

He giggled just a little at that and lay down on the changing station.