Motherhood Has Turned Down My Gross-O-Meter

I used to think that urine and feces were categorically gross. My own was acceptable when it went directly into the toilet and was flushed promptly and successfully. Anything else was gross.

Feel free to stop reading now. Really.

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Daughter 0.1 spit up a lot early this afternoon. Repeatedly. Since I was walking around the house holding her at the time, she spat up on my shoulder, down my back, on the back of my right calf, and on the floor. When she seemed to be done I figured I'd change my shirt and give her a quick bath.

Did you read that? "Quick bath." That was foreshadowing.

Bath time always includes some risk of a mess because the diaper has to come off before the baby goes into the bath. So far we've been lucky with the naked baby transportation.

This time she peed on me. Since I was holding her upright against my chest she peed on my shirt and shorts. For a small creature she can let loose a lot of urine. My pre-motherhood reaction to being peed on would have been quite vocal and I would have gotten the pee off me before doing anything else. Instead, I finished putting the baby in the bath* and thought about how I would pick up my clean baby after the bath without getting her pee back on her.

*Her bath is in the laundry room sink for now. She fits, it's more comfortable than bending over a tub, and it has a vegetable sprayer.**

**Clearly these aren't foot notes since they're in the middle, but I'm not sure what to call them. Asterisk-ized digressions?

So there I am, half-soaked with baby pee, holding the baby in one arm so I can wash her bottom when she starts to poo. And poo. And poo some more.

For the first few weeks, babies poo often. The tracking sheet from the hospital says 4 to 12 times a day. But once their digestion matures enough breast-fed babies poo much less often since they absorb most of what they take in. One baby health book says not to worry if they only poo once a week. Today is Friday and until this afternoon Daugher0.1 hadn't pooed since Monday. I don't think she was absorbing; I think she was saving it up.

She's still pooing in the sink and I'm using the vegetable sprayer in one hand to wash the poo down the drain and off her feet while I'm holding her partly upright with the other hand. I'm not saying "EWWW!", I'm not thinking "This is gross." Instead I'm thinking, "My arm's getting tired. I hope she's done soon." After some more pooing I start to think it's a good thing she's pooing in the sink because this much wouldn't fit in a diaper and a leaky diaper is a bad, surprising kind of mess.

Becoming a mother has drastically increased my tolerance for things that come out of babies.