Be forewarned: this is an entry in which I use the words "poop" and "Henry" a lot.
Early last December, after realizing that despite our best efforts, Henry wasn't getting nearly the amount of sleep he should have been, we made concrete (and sometimes difficult) steps toward rectifying that situation. One of the side effects of our actions, besides having a kid who no longer looked like he was strung out on some type of illegal drug, was his poop completely changed. When he wasn't sleeping so well, there was poop in almost every diaper. After he was sleeping well, he started pooping once a day, and the amount was prodigious. On more than one occasion it escaped the confines of his tightly fastened diaper. The worst part was instead of grunting and groaning, he was suddenly apt to poop silently, which means we weren't always certain if it had actually happened. This led to the "Great Jumperoo Disaster of 2005", when, unbeknownst to me, I put him in his Jumperoo with a loaded diaper. He bounced poop all the way up his back and all the way down his legs. Anyway, fast forward to two weeks ago. We decided since he was showing so much interest in what we were consuming, we would start him on solids. He detested rice cereal, loved oatmeal, decided he liked rice cereal after all, and thus, we were on our way. Last Friday, we started feeding him twice a day, 2tbs of rice cereal in the morning and 2tbs of oatmeal in the evening. I think he pooped Saturday, but by Monday, every little sound (including the floor squeaking) prompted everyone to stop what they were doing, inquire as to whether that might possibly have been a poop, and if there was no concrete explanation for the noise, my mom or I would whisk Henry upstairs to check his diaper. Every time we checked there was nothing there. That brings us to today:
11:45AM – post-nap diaper change; Henry smells like a barnyard. Not a barnyard animal, but an entire barnyard. Diaper weighs forty pounds. From what it contains, you can tell he’s started to eat solid foods. I rejoice because he’s no longer constipated.
11:48- while putting diaper cream on delicate baby bottom, I decide I didn’t do a good enough job cleaning him up. I reach for a baby wipe and as I’m heading back to his tuckus, he decides to poop. Also, he takes this opportunity to go number 1 all over his cute gray Nike socks. I never want to actually see him poop ever again.
11:50- installed a new diaper and have just snapped up his sleeper. While smooching his tummy and letting him grab my hair, he pauses, sticks his tongue out, and starts to grunt.
11:53- Henry is in his crib, with yet another new diaper installed, while I’m in the bathroom washing my hands. Again. From the other room, over the sound of his Mozart-playing mobile, I hear “grunt…grunt…grunt.”
He went through four diapers in under ten minutes. Then he pooped twice more within the next hour. It was unreal. I believe Kelsey Grammer said it best as he was falling off the stage at Disney: “Oh good lord.” Last night when Dave weighed him before his bath, he came in at 20lbs plus a few ounces. We weighed him tonight and he was back to 19lbs 12oz.
