(Endless Shits)
There is nothing in this world like baby poop. The aroma, the ability to defy gravity, the texture, and my favorite…the color. I remember thinking, “Wow, I’ve never seen this type of green before.” You hear other moms talk about it. Maybe even get some stories from your own mom. But when you get to experience it firsthand you’ll realize there’s nothing like it!
The first couple of poops will seem really adorable. They don’t even stink yet, so suck that fresh air in while you can. You even show your husband how cute his boy’s little poo-poo is and wonder what all the fuss is about. “It’s not THAT bad.”
In the first few days after coming home from the hospital, I begged my husband to go deal with the 3:00 A.M. crying baby and that I’d get the next one. He rolled off the bed and did the zombie walk toward the baby’s room. The next thing I hear is “HOLY SHIT” being shouted out across the house. Needless to say I sprang out of the bed and flew toward my son’s room. I was shouting back, “WHAT? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG?”
My husband was standing at the doorway with his mouth hanging open. He looked at me and said, “Our son just crapped a one-foot turd.”
I pushed him out of the way and walked toward my baby. I looked at him and said, “That one-foot turd IS our baby!!”
Poop was covering my son head to toe. There was not one spot of clean pink skin. He did indeed look like a one-foot turd. This was the first time it had happened, and we were so panicked because we thought he could get an infection in his eyes or, even worse, maybe eat some poop off his hand. So we kept shouting at each other, “DO SOMETHING!!!”
But we didn’t know where to begin, because where DO you begin? There’s crap everywhere. My husband unbuttoned my son’s one-piece and pulled it over the baby’s head.
Lesson #1: When you pull a one-piece that is full of poo over your baby’s head, there will be even more poo smeared onto your baby’s face—only this time guaranteeing poop up the nostrils. Which is exactly what happened! So I started screaming at my husband, “Look what you did.” Of course I would have done the same thing but, being a woman, those words naturally came out of my mouth.
I grabbed my brownish-green baby and was ready to throw him in the shower with me when I realized his umbilical cord hadn’t come off yet so I couldn’t get him completely WET. AAHH!! I just screamed, which is what my brownish-green baby began to do. So I kind of propped him up on the side of the sink with just his feet hanging in and washclothed him off. But the poop just kept smearing. To make matters even worse, it was getting all over me, so every time my baby would lean back into me he got poop all over him again. There was an endless cycle of poop. Finally, with my husband’s help, my son was pink again and Charlie the charcoal nub was still intact.
My friends and I named this process “shitting up the back,” which caught on in my house as my husband shouted out at 3:00 A.M. yet again. Our brownish-green baby was back. But this time we were prepared. Instead of pulling the outfit off over his head, we simply cut it off using rounded-edge scissors (rounded so you can’t hurt the baby). We did it!! And this time we didn’t have to dig crap out of our baby’s nostrils, which did make the cleanup a tad easier.
Between runny baby poo and diapers that just don’t fit, no matter what, it’s almost impossible to believe that you’re not going to have to go through a similar experience in your baby’s early months. That month we had to throw away at least twenty-five good outfits. Speaking of outfits, you will find yourself changing your baby’s outfit at least four to five times a day. Between spit-ups and diaper leakage, there’s just no way around it.
It’s when your baby starts to eat more solid food that things become bizarre. I remember changing a diaper and shouting, “Ew, he just pooped like a human.” Meaning his poo was in a log, ya know, like our grown-up poo. It kind of freaked me out. I almost preferred the runny poo. To wipe up after a log just seemed weird. Until, of course, I changed my 1,000th log-poop diaper. I kinda got used to it.
By the “human poo” stage, you get to experience all different kinds of adventures. I was watching my son play with his toys while taking a bath. He was pointing to the duckie, and he said, “Cow.”
I was so happy just to hear him say “cow” that I congratulated him. Then he pointed to the next thing and said, “Cow.”
I said, “No, baby, that’s a leaf…”
“Weef…”
“No, baby, it’s a leaf. How did that get in the tub?”
I bent over to grab the leaf and realized quickly that it was a poo log, NOT A LEAF!!!! I screamed in horror because my boy was sitting in a tub with his poo floating around him. He totally crapped in the tub. I quickly pulled him out and threw him in the shower. That was the day my son learned to say poo-poo…just a little too late.
Even though it might gross or weird you out, baby poo stories really are the best. For some reason people love sharing them. Just remember to be prepared for ANYTHING. Always pack a second change of clothes for your baby, no matter where you go. That one-foot turd could be your baby. I ain’t shittin’ ya!