Yesterday we drove our baby and toddler on the 6+ hour journey home from the Oregon coast to Seattle, through schizophrenic weather that alternated between sunshine, rain, snow, and sudden heart-stopping fits of hail. Around about Hour Four, I inhaled a piquant whiff of baby poo and told my husband to stop at the next rest area, where we pulled over and sat staring out at the driving sleet and wind gusts and tried to strategize our plan of attack.

We had one toddler and one 2-month old, both in need of diaper changes. Our truck was packed to the gills with little room for spreading out. All diaper intervention needed to happen inside the vehicle because ew, highway rest stop. Okay: GO.

I ended up changing the baby's diaper in the backseat while leaning in from the open door, which triggered a massive screaming fit as cold air whirled around Dylan's butt. Thanks to the Law of Babies and Road Trips, he had pooped not a small, manageable amount as normal but rather a voluminous cow pat that required approximately four hundred and fifty thousand wipes. He thrashed and kicked and howled and got poop on his outfit and despite the chilly weather I had runners of sweat dripping down my face by the time I finished the deed.

In the meantime my husband was wrangling Riley's diaper off in the front, leaning across to the passenger seat. He had returned from the vending machine with the sad news that there was no juice, and Riley's reaction was, in a word, DRAMATIC. He blatted and flopped like a fish and refused to cooperate and I looked up momentarily to see a vein bulging from my husband's forehead that pulsed with every ear-shattered shriek.

It was probably less than two minutes total, this scene of utter chaos and noise, but I could feel myself having something like an out-of-body experience, floating slowly away from the car while the sounds of two children rose to a horrific crescendo.

Later, as we motored down I-5, both kids with tears drying on their cheeks and our own shell-shocked faces blinking in slow tandem, I decided that having children is like interval training. You sail along for a while feeling mostly capable, and suddenly WHAM: anaerobic drill. Then things settle back down and you think, oh thank GOD, because at least you can BREATHE again.

Of course, they say you get stronger with interval training. In parenthood, I'm not sure if that's the case. Maybe you just get more flexible.