Sharing is Caring
As a new parent, everything that happens with your child is novel, groundbreaking, amazing, and must be shared with everyone you know. People without kids just LOVE hearing stories about your little Einstein’s bowels. They just eat that stuff up. Still, when something new happens with your most valuable possession, you just have to talk about it…a lot. We spared our friends the following incidents and conversations that occurred with our little family, until now that is. And as time has passed, I’ve realized what once seemed sooooo interesting, now just seems silly and puerile. At any rate….
The Call
“Oh my God,” I said to my wife over the phone. “The funniest thing just happened. I was giving Bear (our daughter) a bath when she just stood up and, grunted, and, and, well, just took a shit. It just surprised me. What could I do? I had, like, no time to react.” My wife giggled at the visual. “That. Is. Hysterical,” she exclaimed. “Awww, the joys of being a parent,” she said.
“Really, it was so funny,” I replied. “And there were two of them! Two absolutely giant logs. It was so gross. I had to pick them up and toss them in the toilet. They were so slimy and solid at the same time. How is that possible? I really had no idea that shit would feel that way in my bare hands. I mean, I was really grossed out, but, strangely, not THAT grossed out. Why didn’t I just scoop up the shit with a cup?? Good question. I don’t know. I just wasn’t thinking. Wow, I love her so much – to actually pick up shit with my bare hands. Crazy.”
The New Normal
Two days later, I received an identical phone call from my wife. “Guess what happened?” she said while chuckling. “It just happened to me!” “Crazy,” she said. “Crazy,” I replied. That was roughly two months ago. We don’t make these phone calls anymore. The novelty has worn off for sure. Our daughter now (80% of the time) shits when comforted by lukewarm water.
I suppose a typical evening for me now is: get home from a long day at work, play with the baby, feed the baby, watch the baby smear food all over her body, run the bathwater, disrobe the baby, play with the baby for a couple of minutes in the bathtub, wash the baby’s body, turn away for a second, hear a single grunt, see feces escaping from her beautiful derriere, realize that I once again failed to grab the baby and place her on the toilet immediately after she started to grunt, scramble to pull the baby and her toys away from floating fecal matter containing undigested grapes raisins, and dates (seriously, should I stop feeding her these things?), hurry to throw a diaper on a crying baby so I can disinfect the tub (do I have to wipe her ass if she poops in water? Isn’t it clean already?), try to settle down an upset baby who has no idea why I’m pissed and racing around, clean the bathtub for 10 minutes, finish putting the baby to sleep, go to bed myself.
The thing is, I can’t complain. I have a healthy, regular baby. No fear of constipation here. I know this pooping in the bathtub/shower is normal, right? Right?