Everyone knows that one of the main reasons I wanted to become a parent was so that I'd have lots of poop stories to tell.* Fortunately, little Q has been living up to expectations. As I've slowly gotten to know our baby over the past 7 weeks, I've begun to figure out a thing or two about his patterns and his likes/dislikes. One thing I've learned is that this kid has a digestive system like a grown-ass man with a case of Norwalk virus from an ill-fated Carnival ship poop cruise.
I learned pretty early on that no matter what you hear going on in Q's diaper, you gotta wait it out. Like, at least 10 minutes from first gurgle to final shart. Otherwise, you risk bathing in a fountain of breastfed baby poop, which is not unlike butternut squash soup in both colour and consistency. I found out the hard way one morning. I had just fed him and had heard a couple of juicy toots, so I decided to be a good parent and not let my son pickle in his own shit for too long. As I pulled off his diaper, he let fly with a couple of good shots which (because I had him by the ankles with his ass in the air) arced like a poop-rainbow clear across the end of the dresser that acts as our change table. I'm talking a good 3 feet. It was impressive and disgusting at the same time.
The next time I heard those familiar sounds, I thought I had it figured out. I waited. I gave it five minutes at least, and thought I was in the clear. Just to be sure, I held the old diaper up like a shield as I was wiping, and was glad I did as a new jet of poop flew into it. I caught it, triumphantly, like a turdy baseball into a goopy catcher's mitt. Smug in my awesomeness, I took the old diaper away so I could put on the new one...which was promptly shat upon again by my prolifically-pooping baby. This time he managed to not only get the whole change table, but he actually got poop IN the diaper cream jar like some kind of gastrointestinal Michael Jordan.
I finally learned, like I said, that I had to wait about 10 minutes from start to finish in order to completely avoid any accidental projectile pooping. Since it was mostly happening in the morning (just as M was usually heading to work, lucky me!) I neglected to tell my husband about this discovery. So early one Saturday morning, after I had finished feeding the baby, M helpfully took Q in for a diaper change. There had been some telltale rumblings, and I thought about telling M to wait it out a bit...but I was sleepy and also a bit of an asshole who figured he could learn the same way I had. Q did not disappoint. Within minutes M was shouting "Oh my God! Oh holy shit!" as he was being bathed in a fountain of poop. I smirked just a little. Then I went in to help clean up.
*sarcasm, in case it's not obvious
