Here is the thing.

Those changing tables in the bathrooms with the cute little koala bears on them. They look all handy and useful, but really they are evil incarnate.

I will change my kids in the car, in the lawn, or on a floor in the corner before I will chose one of those “helpful” devices.

Why?

I’ll tell you why…

For starters bathrooms in Wisconsin are cold. In the summer they always seem to be air conditioned to death and in the winter all that tile never heats up. Therefore the evil koala bears and their hard, weirdly curved, surfaces are also cold. If I were the type of mother who brought along extra blankets and changing mats, this probably wouldn’t be a problem, but I don’t.  Therefore every time I’ve stuck an infant on one of these no matter what condition the child was  in before we started I had an immediate transition to a child screaming bloody murder. And we haven’t even started the fun of the actual diaper change yet.

It is even worse if you have a child about 15 months old. *note, this age is not a coincidence* This age looks at the plastic monstrosity and sees  some sort of awesome jungle gym. That empty hole that’s supposed to be filled with liners, just an extra handhold to help out while you strive to climb away.

Next we have the size issue.  The tables seem so big, until you have a child all stretched out screaming and kicking held down with one hand and  a diaper bag in the other. Clearly the diaper bag needs to get set down someplace, but unless you want to set your diaper bag on the child and, depending on the age, either risk suffocation or having the contents of the bag thrown all over the floor you need to set it on the floor. This means that if you forgot to pre-pull anything you may need out of the bag before starting the diaper change you will be forced to do crazy contortions in order to get what you need out of the bag that’s been left on the floor as you keep the child from rolling/crawling/jumping from the “cute” little bench. There is of course the handy dandy safety strap that you can strap them in with… right, good luck with that.

The final evil kicker? 75% of the time the changing stations are located in one of the stalls in the bathroom. Why? Why would you do this? So that a mother holding down a screaming child on a cold hard surface is also forced to deal with the dirty looks of the women standing in line to use the actual toilet? Seriously? That had to be a childless man who thought that one up.

Why am I on such a rant about changing stations?

I’ll tell you why…

On the way home on Christmas weekend we stopped for some fast food and a little leg stretching. Clara needed a diaper change and John kindly did the deed. John does not share my complete hatred of the changing stations so he waltzed into the men’s bathroom, changed her diaper and waltzed back out again. Unfortunately approximately 67 seconds after her first change it was very apparent that another was needed. Since we were already inside and the weather was a bit chilly for a front seat of the truck change, I picked up the ready diaper bag and headed to the bathroom.

It was bad.

It was very bad.

That day I added to my list of reasons I  hate bathroom changing stations.

#32 – No matter how bad it is, you can not call your husband into the woman’s bathroom to help. No one is OK with that, except for you, the queen of poop, and apparently, in this case, you don’t count.

I had just finished cleaning the poop off of Clara, the table, the wall and the floor.

I was still trying to pick up my mess and clean the poop off of myself as Clara ran around the bathroom topless (did I mention the poop on the clothes?).

She was near the door trying to figure a jail break which I was mentally encouraging (John was on the outside after all) when a woman came in.  The woman made all sorts of fluttery noises about almost running her over, and then picked her up off the floor and out of the way of the door while I washed my hands.

Nice, right?

Ummm, sort of. There is nice and then there are the noises that women who think a child is being woefully mistreated make when they are pretending to be nice while they are actually appalled at what they see before them and wish they could swoop in to save the poor unfortunate child.

What I didn’t know is that apparently some strangers do actually swoop in and pick up your child.

What I also didn’t know is that I’m not so cool with random people picking up my child if her life is not in mortal danger.

What I do know is that when I see those kolas just one look at their beady little eyes and I can see the evil.