Tales of Toxic Baby Poop

Nothing brings parents together like a discussion of dirty diapers of the dynamic kind. When it comes to Toxic Baby Poop, We Are Family. No matter what gruesome tales are told, we all feel that our own baby would capture the prize in a diaper runneth over derby.

One friend, whose daughter is a new player on the baby poop battlefield wrung her hands (and the blouse she'd just washed out) as we discussed the adventures that come with having a baby. Her husband was no help on the field of battle, she said, because every time he approached the offending area, he would gag and retch, thus making a bigger mess than the original culprit. She had to blindfold him and seal off his nasal passages with a clothespin before he could face the offending creature, which makes it more of a pin the tail on the donkey tournament that a simple task of diapering. I mentioned that she could accept wagers from the neighbors over which household item would be the next to sport a diaper, my guess being the family tabby Bubba, but she did the wise thing and sent hubby to live with his mother until the tyke starts school. All the same, I couldn’t help but recall my first foray into deep doody.

When my oldest son was just a couple of weeks old, we ran into the constipation Wheel of Fortune. The doctor advised a little of the apple/prune juice available for babies. It came in a small, innocent bottle in the baby food section of the grocery store and sported a label bearing a smiling chubby-cheeked chap obviously free of intestinal blockage.

Our little guy found the taste quite agreeable and downed the whole bottle.

All at once the sky grew dark, the ground trembled, and people snatched their children from sandboxes in the back yard as they ran to take cover in their basements. Accompanied by an intestinal drumroll and trumpet blast, a volley of semi-solid ammunition erupted from the baby and coated the family like a factory fresh box of Raisinettes.

Even Bounty wasn’t a quick enough picker upper that day. We just ran the garden hose through the living room and washed the waste outside to fertilize the garden.

Nothing has grown in that patch of ground since.

That first diaper demolition derby was a long time ago. Now that very same baby is a responsible young man with a hearty appetite. And we know the plumber by first name.