sister-in-law<\/a> posted a note on facebook about poop. Here\u2019s how she started it:<\/p>\nA few days ago I was talking with a couple friends (non-parents) and I told them that since I\u2019ve become a parent, my idea of what constitutes a good day has drastically changed. I used to think that if I got up early, did some exercise, checked off x number of things on my to do list, etc, etc, it was a good day. Now, a good day is very simple and really requires only two things;
\n1. taking a shower
\n2. not getting pooped on<\/i><\/p>\n
She goes on to talk about the explosive pooping habits of her then-newborn Louie, and the tendency of her oldest (my godson) William to poop and then remove his diaper and do any\u00a0 number of creative things with the contents. The Ogre and I read the note and cracked up about it. Then the Ogre said to me, \u201cAre you sure you\u2019re ready for a boy?\u201d\u00a0 <\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>
\nI gave him a blank look. He said, \u201cYou do know that all boys do that, don\u2019t you?\u201d I shook my head. \u201cMine won\u2019t.\u201d The Ogre started laughing. \u201cHow exactly do you think you\u2019ll keep them from pooping everywhere?\u201d \u201cEasy,\u201d I said. \u201cThe first time they poop and take their diaper off to play with the poop, I\u2019ll give them such a huge spanking that they\u2019ll never, ever do that again.\u201d The Ogre just laughed and shook his head and said, \u201cGood luck with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was unperturbed. My girls had never taken off dirty diapers to explore the contents, and I really didn\u2019t think my boys would either. And I meant what I said; I wouldn\u2019t tolerate that kind of yuckiness.<\/p>\n
After that I sort of put the whole thing out of my head. Every once in a while my mother-in-law would say \u201cBoys are really different, you know\u201d and I would smile and agree and remain convinced of my ability to handle male children as easily as I handled female children.<\/p>\n
And then\u2026<\/p>\n
Today was a crazy day. I\u2019m way behind on housework and kitchen preparations for the week, so after we picked Sienna up from school we ran to the grocery store, came home, I made the girls lunch and then got to work on the chicken stock and dinner prep while Liam slumbered away in his car seat. Every so often he let out some gaseous noises but I didn\u2019t really worry about it. Once I finally got everything settled in the kitchen and the girls had finished eating and went down for their naps, I noticed that Liam was awake so I unbuckled him and pulled him out of his seat. I immediately smelled poop and went straight to the changing table to change him. I laid him down and grasped the end of his pants to pull them off, then immediately pulled my\u00a0 hand back.<\/p>\n
It was covered in poop.<\/p>\n
I gasped. Then I gingerly lifted the corner of his pant leg and peeked inside.<\/p>\n
It was covered in poop.<\/p>\n
The entire leg of his pants\u2026and his entire leg\u2026was coated in poop. I gasped again. Then I steeled myself and pulled his pants off.<\/p>\n
In the entire five years that I have been a mother, not one single moment prepared me for what I saw. I have never even dreamed that so much poop could come out of a baby. Liam\u2019s legs were covered in poop, his onesie was covered in poop, his diaper was covered in poop both inside and out, his stomach, his back, there was even poop in the neck folds on the back of his neck. There was poop in his hair. I stood there, poop-covered pants in my hands, and looked into my son\u2019s eyes. I didn\u2019t know what to do. I had no idea where to even start. Then he started crying, and I sprang into action.<\/p>\n
I pulled his clothes and diaper off, getting my arms and shirt and the changing table covered in poop in the process. Then I wrapped him in a towel that was fortuitously lying nearby and ran to the kitchen sink, grabbing the baby soap on the way. I sat him in the sink and with one hand firmly gripping the poop-covered back of his wobbly neck, proceeded to awkwardly wash him while he screamed. Luckily he\u2019s so fat that he almost completely filled up the sink, so there wasn\u2019t a whole lot of sliding around going on, but it was still the most difficult sink-bath I\u2019ve ever given a baby.<\/p>\n
Once he was bathed I took him to the bathroom, got a towel, dried and dressed him and then laid him on the bed and went to wash all the poop off me. It occurred to me, as I was scrubbing my arms, that motherhood is an extremely humbling job.<\/p>\n
Not only do I spend a lot of my day wiping various bottoms, but I\u2019m also constantly being humbled by my children. When I was pregnant with Sienna I saw a little girl at the doctor\u2019s office chewing on a chair leg and thought to myself, \u201cI\u2019m never going to let my kid do that.\u201d Sienna went on to spend the first three years of her life eating everything in sight, including rocks, chairs, paper, dirt and the occasional worm or cricket. Sienna began speaking in nearly full sentences by the time she was about eighteen months old, so I always assumed that kids who didn\u2019t speak by then were suffering the effects of parents who didn\u2019t care enough about their kids to read to them or talk to them. Now I have a twenty-two month old who, despite our best efforts, only knows how to say about seven words. I assumed that explosive diapers in babies were just the result of parents not changing them enough, or not paying attention; now I have a washing machine that\u2019s 20% clothes and 80% poop.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s humbling to realize that the things my children do that I\u2019ve prided myself on are most likely not the result of my stellar mothering skills. Sure, there are things I\u2019ve taught them, and perhaps even a few things I\u2019ve taught them well, but every child is different, and sometimes even the best mother will find her little boy in the laundry room, painting the walls with his own poop. And she\u2019ll grab a rag or twenty, clean it and him up, and finish her day a little humbler and a little wiser.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few months ago, when I was still pregnant with Liam, my sister-in-law posted a note on facebook about poop. Here\u2019s how she started it: A few days ago I was talking with a couple friends (non-parents) and I told them that since I\u2019ve become a parent, my idea of what constitutes a good day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89,167,189],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lessons-in-virtue","tag-liam","tag-poop"],"yoast_head":"\n
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