112606 - Poop

I was once an pedantic and sometimes eloquent know-it-all. It's shocking how quickly the humility of motherhood will knock the wind right out of your sails.

Little A is pushing a year old. I feel the swelling chest and the slaps on the back impending. I've almost managed a WHOLE YEAR without somehow irreparably damaging my son. Bring on the DRINKS!

But as I sit here, basking in the gloriousness that is my parental accomplishments, I am transported back to the first time I didn't know what to do with my kid.

Now, I took child-rearing classes. Big A and I had all the books, learned how to properly do this thing...Additionally, I'm the eldest of SEVEN children...of course I know what I'm doing...so imagine my surprise when I realized that I had to become a licensed chemist to interpret the goings-on in my son's diaper. At 2 days old, I gazed into his diaper ready for the "seedy, yellowish, sweet smelling" poo that the parenting books all told me a breast feeding mother sees. I was shocked and dismayed to find not sweet smelling seeds, but a tar-goopy substance that wouldn't leave his cheeks for all the rubbing in the world.

"Ahh, this is meconium," I say to myself, the prepared mother. I know this. It's supposed to happen. It's bits of amniotic fluid being excreted via his digestive system... But how the hell do I remove it? Mind you, this was back when I was still loathe to touch Little A with more force than a tap. So, four-hundred wet wipes later, the meconium was off, and he was pooping again.

This continued for about three days, then the "sweet" smelling stuff started. Now we're on to real people poop and I mean, it is stinky. These are the things that fill my mind day after day. If you have kids already, you know how I roll. If you don't, be sure you realize you will no longer have discussions about world peace and the ramifications or antiquation of affirmative action should you ever actually become a breeder. You'll chat about poop. And you'll like it.