The One About Poop

When you're totally responsible for the survival of another, helpless, fragile creature who is unable to take advantage of the joys of opposable thumbs or verbal communication, you become necessarily and intimately acquainted with their ins and outs. Dog owners know what I'm talking about, although luckily my daughter doesn't shit on the lawn and make me pick it up. You're liable for everything that goes in and everything that comes out, and you begin to pay close attention to said things.

With our own bodies, we know how we're feeling because, well, we feel it, and we can communicate that do other people via our words. Babies have no such ability, so, we, as parents, have to use other clues to sleuth our way to finding out how our children are feeling. This means watching their poop.

We are parents. We are Poop Sleuths.

Ezri's most famous move is something I like to call Exploding Poops. She waits until her diaper is off and I'm all done wiping her and then shoots her watery smelly crap all over the place. It's horrible. It gets so much air, it has an arc to it. An arc of poop. Just the other day, she shot it almost two feet across the living room floor. I'm fairly certain I should make some kind of Olympic event out of it. We'd kick ass.

But perhaps a parent most notices their kid's poop when something is wrong, like when there's none or there's too damned much. Then poop sleuthing actually becomes an emotional experience. When Ezri was first born, she didn't poo for a few days, and it was of some concern. That first dirty diaper after a few days of just wet ones was a cause for celebration!

"She pooped! Huzzah!"

People without kids will never really understand our obsession with the bodily functions of our children. And just FYI, my childless friends: When we talk about it, it's not that we're trying to be gross or insensitive. It's just our life now.