Dear Lincoln,
When I was in high school, I did an internship with the nutritionists at McKay Dee Hospital. At that time I was interested in becoming a Registered Dietitian (RD) and wanted to see what their work actually entailed. It turned out to be kind of a survey course where I spent a day with each nutritionist in the facility. There were the outpatient RD’s who offered nutrition advice and eating disorder counseling, the NICU nutritionists who monitored every single ounce of preemie intake, the ICU nurses who meticulously concocted fluids for individual patients according to their charted deficiencies, and several others. Initially I was surprised by how often the word “stool” was tossed back and forth. Very quickly I learned to participate in detailed discussions of patients’ waste: how much, what consistency, exact chemical makeup, etc. And it makes sense. What we expel is indicative not only of what we consume, but also what we’re not consuming enough of. My point is that nutritionists are always talking about poop.
So are moms. It didn’t occur to me then, but nurturing a young child is another job that involves lots of poop. We talk about it, measure it, compare its consistency to what you’ve been eating, clean it off your bum and scrub it out of clothing. Lovely stuff, really!
I thought of this because today you had what parents these days call a “blow-out.” I believe babies do this to cure their caretakers of all squeamish, germaphobe tendencies. It’s when your poop leaks out of your diaper, onto your clothes, my clothes, blankets, furniture, car seat, and whatever else is touching you. If I’m grossing you out while you read this, keep in mind you did it to me. (And everyone else did it to their parents, too!)
Usually a blowout is detected quickly. It stinks. But today either my nose was malfunctioning, or your poop decided to be really sneaky. We were sitting on the living room floor like usual, surrounded by all your toys. You were cranky. No matter how tall I built the block tower, how far I rolled the ball, how many voices I used to impersonate your stuffed animals, nothing worked. I couldn’t distract you from constant whining, so I moved onto the next possibility. Food. I plopped you down in your high chair and offered you Gerber apple vanilla granola, sweet potato puffs and juice. You eagerly accepted every bite, so I thought we were in the clear. I’d figured out the problem and we could move on with the day! Yay for supermom! Alas, the whining ensued the moment I picked you up.
Could he really be tired? I thought. Afternoon naps are not common in this household, but the number one rule of parenting is flexibility; babies are human too and things change. So we headed to the nursery. Along the way, I noticed greenish streaks across the sleeve of my sweatshirt. One sniff told me where those came from. Right then and there I should have changed your diaper. I was going to! Really, I was! I laid you down on the changing table while I stripped off the offending sweatshirt, bent down to smell your diaper and was surprised to smell absolutely nothing. I honestly believed you were completely clean and dry. I then made the unfortunate, lazy choice of leaving it at that, wondering as we sat down in the rocking chair why I hadn’t noticed that sleeve stain before, how many days old it was and how many people I’d unknowingly disgusted.
Six books and twenty minutes later, I turned off the lamp and maneuvered you across my lap to breastfeed. It was only then that, finally, your thick-headed mother became aware of the mess you’d been sitting in for who knows how long. Your sweatshirt was stinky too, and that just couldn’t be coincidence! Sure enough, some pretty horrid stuff was spread across your back. I’m sorry baby. Now that you’ve been bathed, dressed in clean clothes and apologetically cuddled, I hope you can forgive me for being a complete dunce. You’d think that after nearly a year of this I’d know a little bit more about poop. What would my RD friends back at McKay Dee say?
This doesn't even come close to the best disaster diaper story we have. But I think we'll save that for another day. For now, I'm pooped. ;-)
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