ENJOYING THE POOP

Being a mom isn't all a dreamy haze of baby kisses, cuddling, and giggles...there are sleepness nights, bouts with the cold and fever, crying spells and yes, poop. Lots of it. Stinky, smelly, drippy, with colors ranging from bright yellow to mustard to dark green. Sometimes watery, sometimes the consistency of mashed potato (think green mashed potato), sometimes solid and just like an adult's. (Gross huh?) All spread out on your baby's bottom. And there's no one else to - or who should - clean it up but you.

I was seven years old when my baby brother Regis was born. I remember watching in disgust as my mother would clean my brother's bottom. At that time it seemed unfathomable to me how she could stand it. And when she would ask me to throw away the soiled diaper, I would hold my breath and hold the diaper as far from my face as possible, rush to the trash can, drop the diaper, and evacuate the stinky site as fast as I could while finally gasping for breath. I thought to myself that I would love to be a mom someday, but cringed and went faint at the thought of cleaning the poop. Oh God. Sure, I wanted to be a mom someday. But spare me the poop.

Amazingly, changing Sophie's diaper and washing her up is one of my favorite things to do. I laugh whenever I see her go completely still and wear her "pooping face" - a face where she looks extremely serious and very, very queasy. It makes my heart melt when I lie her down on the changing mat and she looks at me with eyes that are both grateful and beseeching, as if she wanted to say "Mom, please get that strange icky stuff off of me!" I find it hilarious that when I take off the adhesives of her diaper, she wrinkles her nose and lets out a disgusted yelp, oblivious to the fact that she was the source of the foul stench. And then she starts singing and waving while I wash her bottom. And when I'd change her back into a brand new diaper, she's be back to her sparkling personality, with a new lease on life, free from all the poop that bogged her down.

And perhaps that is my job as her parent. To take away the all the ugly and bad things that may bog her down. To do my best to dispel her gloom, to wipe away her tears, to help her get over the things she is afraid of. Parenting won't be charmed all the time and there are other things that I'm queasy about, such as disciplining her and going through her adolescence (the thought already sends chills down my spine), but the hardships are part and parcel of the great joy I possess for being her parent. I will face and tackle the hard part with strength, resolve, and joy. Because without the hard part, I wouldn't fully and truly be her mother.

So right now, I'm enjoying the poop.