The Beaver Creek Poop Walk

The last week in July, my little fab family of five piled in the old Honda Pilot and turned our wheel for Colorado.  We threw a huge bash for my Mom's 60th Birthday (you can see the details of that little shin-dig here).  So much has happened between then and today, it feels like another life.  There was one particular part of our trip that I really wanted to write about, but with all the tornadic activity in my life, I didn't get around to it.  So here you go, Gentle Reader.  Just about 2 months later than I intended, which means I'm right on Mariah Time.

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So...

Have you ever been to Beaver Creek Colorado?  You might love it.  You might seriously love it.  

It is beauty.  ful.

It's a little planned resort area, so that might totally turn you off, depending on your snobbery level about such things as planned resort areas.  Honestly, I think it's deeply ingrained in my nature to turn my nose up at gated communities and planned resort areas...  but I don't listen to that snobby elitist inside my head as much as I used to.  She's been taken over by the suburban housewife mother of three.  And she lives in a gated community and likes visiting planned resort areas.  There are advantages, Gentle Reader.

Like lovely safe places for the baby to climb up stairs...

And a fun playground for big brothers...

Okay, so both of these things we have at home.

But we don't have this view while we're climbing stairs and playing on our swing set.

No sir.  No, we do not.

Nor do we have gondola rides that we can use to pretend that we are Buzz Lightyear flying over the purple mountain's majesty.

Nor do we have horsey rides.

That's right.

Horsey rides!

Or free popcorn.

Okay, so we have popcorn.

But it isn't served to us in little imitation butter spotted paper bags, by the Cub Scout Troupe moms of the Beaver Creek Troupe 769, the pride of Avon, Vail, and Beaver Creek!!!

Bliss, I tell you.  Bliss.

We also don't have a Park Hyatt at home.  

Oh, Gentle Reader...

The Beaver Creek Park Hyatt.

Oh, mercy me.

So.

Dang.

Nice.

I want to live there.

And they have a fantastic restaurant.  Oh, my.  Oh, goodness.

I still dream about the breakfast I had there five years ago.

Not kidding.

It was that amazing.

See?  There we are.  We're so happy.  So blissfully, wonderfully happy.  Eating an amazing meal, basking in nature's beauty, on a high from the Friday Family Fun Mountain Festival Extravaganza that we happened to be there for (hence the horsey rides and the paper bags of Cub Scout goodness).

Don't we look happy?  Don't we look thin and beautiful?  Don't we have great skin?

I was just diving into my bowl of homemade ice cream, made by the talented and attractive staff of the Beaver Creek Park Hyatt restaurant kitchens...  

When Max said, "Mommy?  I gotta potty." 

"Oh, Honey!  Can you wait until we finish eating our ice cream?"

I knew immediately that, no.  No.  He could not.

Max pooped his pants at the table.

As I was eating my ice cream.

Just sat there, and pooped.

Pooped.

"Oh my gosh!"  I gasped.  "Chris, I've got to take him to the bathroom."  Remembering that I did not have a change of clothes for him, only for Harry in the stroller...  Oh, dear.  

I took Max by the hand, and we headed inside searching for the restrooms.  Max was walking slowly, and decidedly bow legged.  He was making his way through the tables of the restaurant doing the poop walk.

poop walk- verb.   To walk with poop in one's pants.  noun.  The act of poop walking.  Max poop walked through the Park Hyatt four star restaurant in between tables of resort guests enjoying their $65 grass fed organic steaks.

Max was poop walking through the restaurant.  I was horrified.  I saw in my mind's eye a giant turd falling out of his little red shorts and onto the floor in between the birthday party table, and the honeymooning couple.  I scooped up Smelly McGee in my arms and carried him the rest of the way.  When we got to the bathroom and I sat his feet on the floor, he poop walked towards the stall...

And a big, brown slug flopped onto the slate tile with a sickening plop.

sigh...

At that moment I totally resented Max.

My ice cream was certainly melting.

And I had to clean a turd off of the slate tile floor of the women's restroom at the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek.

Not cool.

Yo Gabba Gabba underwear in the trash.

Cleaning up Lil' Pooper.

Cel phone rings.

Chris.  He sounds upset.  Lucas wailing in the background.  (He's upset?  I just threw a pair of Yo Gabba Gabba underwear in the trash and cleaned a giant turn off of a state floor.  And my ice cream is melted.  He's upset??!!)

Apparently, in the five minutes I was gone, Lucas disappeared.  Thankfully, he rematerialized at the play ground where he had played earlier in the evening.  Embarrassed and upset by getting scolded for running off by Daddy, he was now having a grand mal meltdown in the middle of the Friday Family Fun Festival Extravaganza.  So I got there as quickly as I could, took the baby and my wailing eldest, and headed for the car.

While walking towards the parking garage, and in mid lecture, (You're the biggest brother, you have to set an example...  you shouldn't run away from Daddy...  I'm so disappointed in you for crying and yelling like that...) I realized that I had naked wrists.  During my bio hazard clean up in the ladies room, I had taken off my watch and bracelet and had apparently left them by the sink.

So now, I had a hysterical 5 year old.  No ice cream. And I was down one watch and my favorite Paloma Picasso bracelet.

And, I smelled faintly of poo.

I call Chris and tell him of my missing treasures and head back to the restaurant in the hopes that they are still where I left them.

Chris immediately heads to the ladies restroom and starts mooing through a crack in the door, "Ladies!  Please help!  My wife lost her bracelet and watch!  Do you see them in there??"  No.  The helpful ladies in the restroom did not see my watch and beloved bracelet.

Because he was at the wrong ladies restroom.

I found them just where I left them, and took care to not step in the place where I had been on my hands and knees cleaning up after Max just minutes before.

Then we headed to the Honda Pilot in disgruntled silence, a faint waft of poo in our wake.  We left the beautiful planned resort area, left Beaver Creek, and pulled into the parking lot of our moderately priced Comfort Inn in the nearby town of Avon.

And that, Gentle Reader, is why I blog.  Because someday, Max will be a teenager.  And he will have girlfriends.  And revenge tastes as sweet as home made ice cream from the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek.