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Hey, new parents! Do you remember when your life was all about getting dressed up and going out to trendy cocktail lounges? Do you remember short road trips to the beach? How about simple dinner parties with friends at your place? Well if you’ve just had your first baby, you are probably living in pajamas, stuck at home with a crying newborn, up to your neck in diapers and poop. I don’t think this is a change for which any new parent is prepared.
Your life is now poop. I mean that figuratively and literally. From the moment you have that newborn in the hospital, you are on diaper duty. Sure, you can let the nurses have the first couple of changes, but you will be taking that tiny baby home and you will be cleaning the poop off of their tiny butt.
Do you know what a newborn baby’s poop looks like? Black tar. It’s just as sticky too. Is it normal? Yes. Will it stay like that? No. Do new parents know the answers to any of these questions? No. Do you know why? It’s because no one warns you about newborn babies and poop! I think that is completely unfair! Of course, I love all of the “a newborn is a living miracle” and “I am now a daddy” stuff, but come on! Couldn’t some parent have warned me about how familiar with poop I was going to be?!
I understand. We don’t talk about poop. Think about it. In your own personal life, do you really think about the huge dump you took this morning? Or do you take a crap at night? In the afternoon? Guess what. No one knows. You know why? Because NO ONE EVER TALKS ABOUT THAT KIND OF THING! I’d be surprised if anyone even looks in the toilet to see the huge dump they just took after wiping their ass. And I don’t blame them! I don’t want to either! I just take a crap, I wipe my ass, and I’m on my way. But are you a new parent? Did you just have a baby? Then you are now very familiar with poop.
Thanks be to God, my son was born with great health. Do you know how I knew his health was great? Poop. One of the main ways a parent is able to monitor their newborn’s health is through their poop. Do you know there are websites that show what healthy baby poop and unhealthy baby poop look like? Of course, there are. Do you know why? Because no rookie parent knows what a healthy baby poop looks like! Is it supposed to be yellow? Why is it green? Is it supposed to be runny? Is that diarrhea, or is it normal? Will my baby get dehydrated? Should he be pooping three times a day? Is six times a day too much? These are all questions a responsible parent must ask. Daily. Like I said: a life of poop.
My son was in great health during his first months of life, but he did not like pooping in diapers. I checked his diaper often, always careful and concerned about cleanliness and rashes. And without fail, when I would take the time to change his wet pee diaper, he would poop. With perfect timing, he pooped right after I had already thrown away his pee diaper. I would be grabbing wet wipes, trying to catch his poop before it landed on the changing pad. Do you know how much of a clean freak I was before I had children? Well, that all changed. It had to. Because little babies are poop monsters. And I love little babies. So, I love poop monsters.
Who the hell even calls crap “poop”, anyway? I’ll tell you who. Parents. Crap and shit have negative connotations. They are “bad words.” Too much crap in your life can depress you. Too much shit can give you more reason to give up. After you have a baby, crap and shit become your life. It is a daily duty/doodie. And to make our shitty life bearable, we call it poop.
And then, there are buttholes. When was the last time you saw one? Do you look at them often? I guarantee you, the only people reading this and nodding their head yes, are sexual perverts, proctologists, and newborn mommies and daddies. Never thought you’d be categorized with sex pervs and butt doctors, did you? Neither did I. I can honestly say, I never had the desire, interest, or curiosity of looking at buttholes. Not on people, not animals, not on anything. However, I became a father to a newborn whose diaper I had to change several times a day, which means I was now looking at a butthole much more often than I would have liked. I spent my days, wiping his bum, seeing his little butthole open up, which signaled to me to grab a wet wipe, so I could catch his big green poop that he refused to push into a diaper.
I wanted a baby. I did not want a life of poop. I did not want a life of buttholes. But poop and buttholes come with the package, so I had to adjust. And adjust I did. If you are reading this and you have never cared for a newborn, you will never grasp what it is like until you have hands-on experience. I can write an article, a chapter, and a book to help warn you, but you still will not fully understand this life of poop and buttholes. Our son let out a wet fart while mommy was changing him, and poop juice sprayed on her face. On his first birthday, he had a lick of cake and the next day, his poop came out frosting blue. I never saw it, but my wife told me that a raisin rehydrated in his little body and came out looking like a grape. I’m telling you, this poop thing is so strange. Then, eventually, it becomes so normal. It becomes a point of pride. You become that crazy mom at the mall, who quickly and easily changes a thick poop diaper on a bench in the middle of the mall, with a confident grin on her face, saying, “Yeah, I love my kids so much, I always put up with their shit.”
If you are a new mommy or daddy reading this, and it all seems impossible to you, don’t worry. You’ll get there. We all get there together.
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This article is an adjusted excerpt from Alejandro’s memoir, The Legendary Daddy and is republished with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Getty Image