The Blowout

We moms have an obsession with poop. If you have many facebook friends who are moms, like I do, then on any particular day you are likely to find on your homepage at least one status update regarding a child’s poopy diaper or potty disaster. I know for sure that I’ve posted countless poop related stories.  From the day we first became mothers, the doctors ingrained in us an innate need to monitor poop by requiring that we keep an hourly log of soiled diapers. At our babies’ first check-ups the pediatricians inquire as to the quantity and quality of our children’s poop. They insist that a healthy poop means a healthy baby.

This afternoon we came home after a long morning of being out-and-about. I placed little Johnny boy in his exersaucer so that I could finish unloading the car. He played happily for awhile, grasping at the toys and chewing on anything he could draw close enough to his mouth. But before long he began to fuss. As soon as I lifted him up from the exersaucer seat my nose stung with that sweet pungent smell of fresh breastmilk poop. And after I smelt it, I felt it. The poop was seeping through his clothes- textbook definition of BLOWOUT.  An experienced mother knows that before you begin to change a blowout diaper you must first carefully inspect the damage. I turned him over a couple times and lifted up his clothes to formulate my plan of attack. The poop had seeped out the diaper at both legs and up the back; it was draining down one leg into his sock and had exploded out the top up to his neck. This was a bad one. I took a deep breath and charged into the fray. Each layer of clothing had to be gently and carefully removed so as not to spread the poop further than it had already traveled. (When I was a first-time mother I made the mistake of quickly yanking a dirty onesie over baby Josie’s head and the poop spread up her back, over her bald little head, and into her face.)  First the socks, then the pants, then the shirt, then the undershirt, and finally the diaper- each and every piece saturated with bright yellow gook. Sometimes this big of a blowout mandates an immediate trip to the bath, but knowing that he would be getting one later that evening I decided to stick to the traditional method. I had to use at least one wipe per roll of baby fat on Johnny’s adorably pudgy legs. There was no conservation of baby wipes on this job. By the end, I was left with a heap of dirty clothes, a diaper stuffed with soiled wipes, and a very happy baby.

A baby after his blowout is so very content. He’s giddy and care-free. He feels light as a feather. After I finished cleaning Johnny he lay on the floor, happy as could be. He kicked his chubby legs and flung his chunky arms. He was smiling and laughing and cute as could be. And that’s when it hit me- the doctors were right (go figure)! A healthy poop really does make a healthy baby.