Poop-wiki
July 6, 2010 at 9:22 AM
Poop. Pronunciation: \ püp\ Function: noun, verb, transitive verb, intransitive verb.
Etymology: Middle English, from the Anglo-French pope, from Latin puppis
Dates back to the 15th century. *
Oh yes, gentle readers, it’s a poop-post.
There is a point, somewhere between that last push in the delivery room and your baby’s 6 month birthday, where poop and all things related becomes a relevant and pervasive topic in your life. When you were single or even married but before you had children, did you ever talk to your boyfriends, dates, or spouse about poop? Did you talk about it with your girlfriends? Your mom? Was it even something you thought about much if at all? No. You do now though, I’ll bet.
I know you do. As do I. Why? I wonder about this. Then I take a look at my life, my two boy children, one of whom because of his disability, is almost 12 and not yet potty trained, our three pets for whom I am the primary caretaker, and it hits me: I am up to my elbows in poo. Since the boys were babies to today when I still deal with Josh wearing Pull-Ups, between picking up after the dog, cleaning the bird’s cage and the chinchilla’s house, it’s always there. My 13 year old has an inexplicable need to relay his bathroom exploits in great detail. Josh still has plenty of accidents. The dog, who I am fairly certain is insane, has a pooping ritual that is beyond strange. The bird likes to build mountains by going in the same spot all the time. The chinchilla is like a machine, churning out a seemingly endless supply of the stuff. I’m surrounded by it. I plan my life around it - going out at times when I am fairly confident Josh won’t be needing to go; I’ve arranged flights around what I think his poop schedule might be; I have this, that and a thousand other things to do but I have to make sure I take the dog out before I do anything else so he won’t poop in the car… again.
Zach coming out of the bathroom: “Mom, I just had this…” me: “Stop it. I don’t need to hear it.” Zach: “but mom, it was…” me: “Seriously. STOP.” Zach: “Ok, but, it was really …” me: “Why is this happening? I DON’T NEED TO KNOW THIS.” But apparently, I do. This is part of my job. For I am the household’s elimination engineer, head of the personal-hygiene hazmat crew, I am the key master AND the gate keeper. I am, The Poop Whisperer.
It’s an odd thing, when you think about it. You have a baby and suddenly you are obsessed with elimination. We monitor our kids’ bowel habits like they’re the Geological Survey - always wondering when “the Big One” is going to hit. Regaling your friends and family with stories of explosive happenings and subsequent Silkwood-esque hose-downs like you’ve just seen the latest action flick.
New moms are all nodding their heads. Factoid for the freshmen: baby poop is like the Dom Perignon of the poop world. Doesn’t matter how explosive, runny, or smelly you think it is, that stuff is like sweet nectar compared to what happens when baby starts eating solids. Yes, I’m comparing baby poop to things that are consumable. You’re welcome. You too will soon understand why changing a toddler’s dirty diaper on a plane is something you want to avoid at almost any cost. You will learn the hard way that ONE time you decide you won’t be out long enough to need changing supplies and besides, he/she just pooped so it’s totally fine...that it’s not. Children have a heightened sense about this, they just know when you really, really, REALLY don’t want them to go, so of course, they will.
Becoming a parent means poop is now an unavoidable part of your world. Accept this. Own this. Equip yourself accordingly and it will all be fine.
*Merriam-Webster.com
This was posted on Momversation this morning, but I felt like the edits made changed the whole tone and I just like my version better. So, there you go.
First day of ESY (Extended School Year) for Josh today and of course, he was up from 10:30pm last night 'till about 5:45am this morning. Because that's how he rolls.
Reader Comments (10)
Elimination Engineer... I like that! I may use that...
I would say the subject of Sarah's diapers started younger than 6 months... Sarah started with constipation at a few weeks old. We changed formulas.. nothing helped.. finally settled on one that relieved it a LITTLE... By the time she was eating solids, we'd tried pretty much everything... Benefiber it was.. and now Miralax (which has been interesting tweaking the dosage). So, yeah, poop? We're talking about it plenty....
PS: I liked the original post better too.
Great (and disturbingly accurate) post. Why did they edit it? It's fine ...except, it stinks. *snicker*
Well done!!
Thank you ladies :) Not sure why it needed to be edited the way it was, it wasn't that long. I think sometimes people don't always get where I'm coming from with the way that I write.
ps. Melissa, we have the opposite problem here - I don't think Josh has had a solid bowel movement in his entire life. Regardless of his diet (we were GFCF for about 3 years).
I concur - the original is better. :)
That first sentence: "There is a point, somewhere between that last push in the delivery room and your baby’s 6 month birthday, where poop and..." is awesome!
Thank you Steve and Meredith :) Also, Meredith, you should come to Vegas with me in October....
I, too, am all too familiar with the poop schedules of everyone in my house. I have a dog that goes like clockwork at lunchtime and 2 boys on the severe end of the autism spectrum that are not potty trained.
I have to admit that I was almost happy to hear that I am not the only mom with a child with autism that has a child still in pull-ups. It drives me crazy when everyone tries to tell me how to potty train them when I have tried at least a gazillion times.
Now I just tell people that I do not know when or if they will ever be potty trained so stop asking!
Right there with you, Sunday, I'm always embarrassed around people who don't know us that well, but he's just not ready. We even had a special consultant come and spend a very intensive weekend with him to work on it a couple years ago, but it didn't help. He will initiate on occasion, but not consistently by any stretch. Sometimes he lets me know either before or after he's gone, sometimes he doesn't and I have yet to figure what the difference is for him (like, what's making him more aware at the times he seems to be vs when he just doesn't care).
If it weren't so gross I'd post a video of the dog... I swear it's the most bizarre ritual. I think maybe he's picking up autistic tendencies from Josh, lol.
I laughed and cried at the same time! Hang in there ...