When I became a mom, I didn’t expect to talk so much about my baby’s poop.
It all started at the hospital, where the staff gave us a form that parents had to fill out to track how many times their baby peed and pooped each day. I was breastfeeding, and I don’t know if that’s why, but I think we became obsessed with that form:
“Okay, here we go—did she poop? Are you writing that down?”
“So meconium is really sticky—it looks like tar.”
“Oh, it’s really runny—it looks like mustard. Is that normal?”
Then comes the time when you get back home, and that’s when the conversations start:
“So, did she poop? Yes, but what was it like?”
“Do you think that’s okay? How many times has she pooped today?”
“Oh crap, honey! Come look—I just broke the record for the fullest diaper, and it’s overflowing! Hurry, come help me!”
“Well, no, it’s not that bad—I’ve seen worse the other day...”
That’s the kind of conversation my partner and I have all the time.
Then come the anecdotes. Like the time we took the baby to the baby store for the first time and brought more than we needed, with no idea what was about to happen. Oh no! The baby’s crying. She’s had a drink, she’s been cuddled… Well, all that’s left to do is check the diaper! Off to the store’s restroom.
How does a changing table work? Okay, cool, I’ve got this. Meanwhile, Dad—a bit clumsy—leans over to take stuff out of the diaper bag, and suddenly, “slouttttttt!!!” The stream shoots out! It looked like a baseball-sized mustard bottle being squeezed as hard as possible! What a long throw! Lucky for us that Dad was bent over—he could’ve gotten it right in the face—but thankfully, it was the bathroom door that ended up dripping with that lovely mixture of poop. Surprised and dumbfounded, we looked at each other and burst out laughing. We stayed in the bathroom for at least 30 minutes cleaning the walls and the door.
Anyway, what a story! We still talk about that baseball-mustard-colored poop incident.