The Poop Rating Scale

No one tells you this before you become a parent, but as it turns out, one of your most important jobs as a caregiver is to monitor your baby's bowel movements.  How much?  How often?  What color and consistency?  Knowing the answers to these questions and recognizing when the answers change is of the utmost importance in monitoring a newborn's health.  The 1st signs of sickness can often be seen in an unusual number 2.

Now, I'm a mature, responsible man.  A husband and father, a homeowner, college educated with an accomplished professional resume.  I'm more than able to get past the grossness and take a clinical approach to doody duty.  Still, like every other man in the world, there's a part of me that still thinks and acts like a 13-year old, and having the daily opportunity to describe poops has been a delight to my less sophisticated sensibilities.  This combination of the need and want to talk openly, accurately and ridiculously about each and every excrement led to the creation of the Poop Rating Scale.

Poop Watch 2010

Epic baby poops are a recurring theme in this blog, described regularly in their amazing, disgusting detail.  I'd imagine that from reading those stories, you'd think that the messes are the worst part of dealing with my daughter's digestion issues.  You'd be wrong.

Grace went from Sunday afternoon to late Monday night without pooping, and let me tell you, a backed up baby is a very unhappy baby.   I'm talking Birthers on Obama's inauguration day unhappy.  Every Mets fan over the past four years unhappy.  SEVERELY unhappy.

One Poop to Rule Them All

Even though she's only 7 weeks old, Grace has already demonstrated a knack for making a grand entrance, dating back to the day she was born.  Carrie was due on April 4th, but three weeks before that her water broke.  During a dinner party we were throwing for her parents.  During a tree-uprooting, hurricane level windstorm.  It was truly an epic introduction to the world.

Over the weekend, Grace had another opportunity to make a memorable first impression.  The three of us went to a party where a bunch of our childless friends were meeting our baby for the first time.  We fed Grace before we left home, then packed in the car and headed off.  Since the trip took about 45 minutes, we knew we'd have to change her diaper as soon as we got there, so after saying hello to everyone, we woke Grace up, took her out of her car seat and got ready to get to work.

Immediately upon lifting her up, we learned that we had a situation on our hands.  Grace had a blowout.  For the uninitiated, that's when a poop manages to escape from the leg holes or the top band of the diaper.  Normally, that sounds worse than it actually is.  It happens once or twice a week and is only a little more messy than a run of the mill changing.  As seasoned parents, Carrie and I were initially unperturbed.  Of course, everyone else was wildly entertained by our apparent misfortune.

We took Grace inside, set up the travel changing pad on the kitchen table and, with our host and hostess looking on, got started.  The four of us opened the diaper to reveal the worst thing I've ever seen, and I've seen I Know Who Killed Me.  Carrie and I were taken aback.  Our host and hostess were outright staggered. 

Every single bit of the diaper was saturated with mustardy poop.  Poor Grace's butt, legs, back and tummy were covered with runoff.  Even worse was the smell.  There were literally visual stinklines rising up from the mess.  To get a sense of the vileness, imagine if a wet dog had a baby with the Staten Island dump, then covered it in poop.

Cleanup was obviously no picnic.  Baby wipes weren't going to be enough to handle this, so we opted for an immediate emergency sink bath.  Fortunately, our friends were still in a state of shock (and I'm sure coming to the conclusion that they're never, ever having children), so I don't think they noticed us wrecking their bathroom.  From there, we dealt with disposal, a double bagger if there ever was one.

In the end, I'm glad it happened.  I was excited to introduce Grace to so many of my friends, and because of her flair for spectacular entrances I'm fairly positive that it'll be a day they'll never forget.  Even with extensive therapy and powerful medication.

A River Runs Through It (It Being My Sweatshirt)

As a new father, I knew I'd be peed on.  I just never imagined I'd be peed on with so much vigor.  Not once, not twice, but three times today, my darling 5 week old baby Grace decided to use her daddy as a diaper in spectacular fashion.

I don't know a whole lot about Grace's likes and dislikes just yet, but if there's one thing that I'm certain of it's that she hates - Capital H Hates - being changed.  With her, cold and wet are two painting the black strikes against you, and if she's hungry while you're changing her, that's a screaming, crying 12-to-6 hammer for strike three.

So, armed with that knowledge, I should've known better than to take her from the changing table to her bathtub sans diaper, wrapped only in a blanket and cradled tight in my arms.  "It'd only be 15 seconds," I thought to myself, "before she'd be in the tub.  Surely she wouldn't pick those 15 seconds to pee ."  But, alas, surely she did.

A torrent of tinkle raged from her bottom, soaking her blanket, my sweatshirt, my sock and the floor.  A sly little smile curled up at the corners of Grace's mouth.  A delighted cackle came from my wife, who witnessed the flooding with unrestrained glee.

One bath, one nap and one sock and sweatshirt change later, Baby Grace was up again, ready for lunch.  I fed her and, as is her custom, she pooped mid-bottle.  Putting the trauma of the morning behind me, I steeled my nerves and took her back to the changing table, opening her diaper to what could best be described as a crime scene.  Not 5 seconds into cleaning her up, Old Faithful erupted again, creating something of a *GROSS ALERT* poop mudslide */GROSS ALERT* spilling out of her diaper and funneling down her back.  It was way worse than the first round, but at least I didn't require another costume change this time.  Her outfit, though, needed to be burned and never spoken of again.

That had to be enough pee incidents for one day, right?  Wrong.  The very next diaper change, Grace was at it again, only this time I was ready.  I opened her diaper and waited her out, absolutely positive of what was going to come.  Sure enough, water works, only this time I caught it all in the dirty diaper, successfully saving an outfit and, for the moment, my sanity.

Still though, it's enough to give a guy a complex.