11.08.05
Not for the weak of stomach
Shortly after having Noah, I remember reading in a parenting magazine about how something rarely talked about (namely, poop) becomes one of the central conversation topics in your home after having a child. I found it amusing until I realized that yes, it’s true. Once you have children, the subject of poop is no longer off-limits. At any time, really. You can frequently hear around our house “did he poop today?”, “how was it?”, “we need to buy bananas”, or “he needs prunes for snack”. All of this in relation to Noah, of course. The conversations regarding Elisabeth have some slight variations. “Did she poop?”, “How was it?”, “What color was it?”, “how much?”. There’s also the discussion of texture, and comparisons to mashed potatoes, pudding, peanut butter. Then, of course, there are the conversations revolving around which brand and style of diaper best contains the “poop explosions” that Elisabeth sometimes has, and the resulting conversations about how best to pre-treat and wash the clothing that was the unfortunate casualty of the explosion. Noah has picked up this phrasing - when he tells me that Elisabeth has pooped, he now says “she exploded”. I have no idea if he knows what he’s talking about. It’s amazing that Noah doesn’t have bad dreams about his baby sister spontaneously combusting.
Elisabeth has managed to catch a virus that Noah had or has. While in Noah it’s respiratory, in Elisabeth it’s presenting as abdominal. As a result, Dan and I tackled what seemed like a tag-team diaper marathon yesterday morning. No less than 7 poopy diapers in just under an hour. Then the conversations became something like this:
(after 2 poops)
“I’m getting worried about this”
“Well, she didn’t poop last night”
(another poop)
“It’s sort of green”
“No, it’s yellow”
“No, it’s not. It’s green. And it’s wet. That’s diahrrea.”
“No, it’s yellow. But it is wet.”
(another poop)
“That’s definitely green. If you put mustard next to it, it would look green. What do you think, spinach colored?”
“No way, that is not spinach colored. That’s like dark green. This is too yellow.”
(another poop)
“Ok, now I think you should call the doctor”
(another poop)
“Maybe we should take a picture with the digital camera to show the doctor”
(I don’t think I said anything. How do you respond to that?)
Then later, in the car…
“Ok, so what, like avacado color?”
“No, there’s not enough yellow”
“You keep saying it’s yellow, it’s not yellow!”
“No, I mean avacado doesn’t have enough yellow in it”
Then, in the doctor’s office, Dan looked around and found a picture of kids playing in the grass. He proceeded to try to find the shade of grass that best described the appropriate shade of poop. (This from the person insisting it was yellow).
- Completely aside, I think Dan sees the world in shades of yellow. We’ve had a long-running argument about our CREAM-COLORED house being yellow.-
Incidentally, our pediatrician told us that the majority of phone calls she handles are in some regard to poop. Too much, too little, color, consistency, etc. Seems we’re not the only ones who talk about poop all day. What’s ironic is that while this takes up a good portion of your day, you won’t find parenting forums or chat rooms devoted to baby poop, and the subject is rarely discussed with other parents. Perfectly acceptable to discuss your child’s poop over the dinner table with your spouse, but not in company. It’s the unspoken baby poop rules, apparently. One would think that if more parents would discuss their children’s poop with other parents, the poor doctor wouldn’t have to talk about somebody else’s poop all day. I wonder if she has nightmares about baby poop. It’s a wonder that we don’t, really.