Sorry - this is about poop. I won't make a habit of talking about it.

***DISCLAIMER***

I try to refrain from frequent oversharing of medical, personal, or just gross things about my baby or family.  I also try to realize when things are boring or irrelevant to anyone other than my family.

This is not that.  Like the book says,

Not only does everyone poop, but nearly everyone will find themselves at a point in life when they will be responsible for someone else's poop, even if just once, and by accident.

Anyway.

Before I had a child, the only practical thing that worried me about being a parent was dealing with gross diapers.  I'd never changed a baby before, and I've almost thrown up on dogs when cleaning up their poop, so my track record wasn't too great.

As I found out (and shared), newborn poop is a wonderfully succint, odorless, tar-like substance not unlike marmite, the Aussie's preferred toast condiment.  Not much to look at, but comes in a neat little package, and above all, really easy.  After the first few days when the marmite poop goes away, it shifted color and consistency, but still not much odor to speak of, and even that was more like a musty attic than what I categorize as poop.  Weird, but still OK.

That blissful time in life is thanks to my lovely wife and her breasts.  Specifically, the milk from said breasts that fed my child a form of nutrition her body was able to nearly completely digest, thus leaving very little in her poop that might smell.

I love science.  At least when it works for me.



Sadly, supply and demand haven't been in lockstep over the last few weeks, and we had to add in baby formula to satisfy the hungry beast.  They say that stuff has gotten to be really good and nutritious, all that.  Awesome, glad to hear it.  Baby's growing like a weed, all is well.

Except, remember science?

Yeah, with the start of things-other-than-breastmilk comes poop-that-looks-and-smells-awful-and-like-poop.  With this experience, I feel like I have a little more insight into Adam & Eve's story, knowing what it was like to experience sin entering the world.


I've already thrown away outfits.  I've retched and scared my baby (no actual vomit yet, thankfully).

Yesterday's outing started out like this:

We were still out, however, when the floodgates opened.  In the back of the Subaru (which is thankfully made of rubber and can be hosed), we ran through all our wipes in the World Market parking lot.

People stopped and offered their knowing little "I've been there, but my foggy memory of 30 years ago makes me think I handled it sooo much better than you are" smiles and comments.  My favorite lady ended our little interaction with "Treasure all these moments!" to which I responded, "You're not the one cleaning this up!"

I ran back in the store to find some paper towels.  Not one to pass up a moment to use a funny pseudo-word, I quickly found an employee:

"Excuse me - I have a.....shituation, shall we say, in the parking lot, and need a bit of back-up."

Slightly confused, blank stare.  If my wife weren't elbow deep and trying to do damage control, I'd have waited for that statement to sink in a bit longer, but instead, I mumbled something about a baby and paper towels.  Came back, cleaned up what we needed to, and still went out for Chinese.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

It's the end of an era.  The end of innocence, in a way.  I was right; diapers are awful.  The first six months lulled me into a false sense of security, and then it all came at me, hard and fast and awful.  I'm thinking, toilet trained by 9 months.  Tops.

After all, how hard could it be?