The true origin of tar and the peanut gallery....

Greetings from a new father of a beautiful baby girl! Grace Madelyn was born on December 18th and our lives have forever changed. I know I've been a little behind on posts here, but from day one of her life, I knew what I had to write about. Let me set the scene:

Grace was all of an hour or two old. Sara was recovering and relaxing in the hospital bed and Grace was laying in the little hospital bassinet. A multitude of family was with me as I stood there in surgical scrubs looking at my new baby girl as she held onto my finger. I was hooked! A beautiful scene and memorable moment to be sure. At that moment, all was right with the world.

Then, she started to cry. It's important to realize at this point that as far as I can remember, I can count on one hand the number of babies I've ever held. I basically have zero experience here so I don't know what's wrong or have the slightest idea of what to do. A bright idea springs up from the throng of people now closely surrounding me, "Check her diaper!" Of course....check her diaper....I can do this. I am her father and I am going to take the bull by the horns here and take care of business.

Full of confidence, I undo the straps of the diaper and look inside. Tar. That's what I see.....tar. I immediately think back to the things I read preparing for the baby and I remember the clinical term for what I'm seeing.

meconium me·co·ni·um (mĭ-kō'nē-əm)
n.

A dark green fecal material that accumulates in the fetal intestines and is discharged at or near the time of birth.

At this point, it was like the scent of fresh blood was released in the room and our once calm family morphed into a hungry mob of hecklers, anxious to laugh at me as I tried to clean this up.

Have you ever seen those hospital dramas where they have a viewing gallery where other surgeons and medical professionals can watch a surgery? That's how I felt. I was in a fishbowl. I had full play-by-play heckling from the peanut gallery behind me as I struggled.

The definition of meconium leaves out one very important description: STICKY! It was like some hot tar roofer decided to splatter my daughter's diaper with a mop full of hot tar. It stuck to everything! The diaper, the wet wipes, my hands, her legs, my hands again, her heels, my hands AGAIN, etc., etc. It was everywhere and apparently hilarious to the pack of wolves behind me. I don't know how many wipes I went through or how long it took, but I can safely assume it was the longest diaper change in the history of mankind; we are still awaiting the official determination from Guiness. I did it though, and let me tell you, that was one clean butt (legs, my hands, her heels, my hands, etc., etc.) when I was finished!

A little more than two weeks have passed since then and, of course, I'm a pro at the diaper change by now, but I will never forget that day. The first day I changed a diaper. The first day our family gathered around me to laugh at how the tides had turned and that now I was the clueless dad trying to figure it out. The first day I helped my little girl with a problem that she couldn't do anything about. The first day I knew that I could do this. The first day in this adventure of fatherhood.


P.S. Not all posts will be about poopy diapers, I promise. :-)

Why I smelled like apple-cinnamon poop this morning.

As you most likely know, Sara and I are expecting our first child in December. Even though my "adventures in fatherhood" haven't really started, this morning's events have made it necessary to start this blog early. Here's how it went down:

I was all ready to go to work this morning, even Bandit (our 6 pound toy poodle) had done his business outside and received his treat. Then I remembered that it was "trash day" and I needed to get the trash ready and taken out to the curb. I started in the kitchen under the sink and took out the bag. Nothing out of the ordinary yet, same thing as every other trash day. Then I walk into the living room and get the trash from there and I begin to smell something nasty.....I mean really bad! It's not a garbage smell or anything like that, it had the hint of a fresh poop. I glance at the dog--he doesn't have that guilty "I just farted" look or the ashamed "I have a dingleberry" look so I check the bottoms of my shoes. Nothing. Not knowing what was going on, I turned and headed down the hallway to the bedroom and little bathroom to gather the trash from back there. The smell seemed to dissipate as I walked, so I put it out of my mind.

There it is again!!! As I'm gathering the trash from the bedroom and bathroom I'm hit with another wave of funk (which, coincidently would make a great band name). This time much stronger. It's as if someone had smeared a hot turd all over the walls. Once again, I look at the dog (who follows me everywhere) to look for a hint of guilt.....nothing! I leave from there and head to the main bathroom to get the trash from there. This time the smell didn't go away, it was sitting heavy in the air all the way down the hall and seemed to follow me into the bathroom. At this point, it had gotten so bad I was having a hard time breathing and even the dog started sneezing from the smell.

I had to do it. I stuck my nose down into the trash bag and it is most definitely poop and it is ANGRY!!

Now, I'm rushing the trash out of the house and trying to figure out how in the world the poop had gotten there. Once again, I turned to the dog and tried to envision how he (a wonderfully housebroken dog) could have accomplished this feat. After ruling out some sort of "ninja poop" whereby Bandit could have crapped in a trashcan that is twice his height, I then ruled out both Sara and me since I didn't recall taking a dump in the trashcan and I was pretty sure Sara wouldn't have done that either. I didn't think any of our friends would have played that kind of prank on us either, so I was at a complete loss as to how this happened.

Then I remembered. Sara's best friend Meredith was over with their 6 week old baby, Nolan, last Saturday. He must have taken the world's nastiest dump and his diaper got thrown into our trashcan under the sink. Now I knew why it started somewhat faint and then spread to a biohazard-like level of stink--I had picked that bag up first and then proceeded to carry it around the house and jostle it around, effectively shaking up what it contained into what I can only imagine was a foamy mess.

Now, I'm walking all over the house spraying apple-cinnamon air freshener and thinking of a new house rule: Until we get a diaper genie, all poopy diapers MUST be disposed of in the outside trashcan. Oh, the adventures of fatherhood that lie ahead......I can't wait!