I don’t want to talk about Christmas or snow. Today, I would like to confess something a little more sensitive. Faith and I have developed a mild obsession with poop. Not our own… or each others (you’ll be glad to hear) but our son’s. We have entire conversations about the regularity and colour of our young son’s bowel movements.
When Adlai does a poop you know about it. Not only by the already impressive smell but by the slightly worrying colour of maroon he turns and most notably the loud crying sound he makes. I wonder at what age you stop crying when you do a poop. What if you heard adults weeping from inside the bathroom? That would be weird.
Whilst shopping at IKEA recently (I go mostly for the meatballs), it was deemed that Adlai needed his nappy changed, so I stepped up to the plate and headed for the baby changing room. Everything was going fairly mundanely, when something bad happened. Adlai began to projectile poop. Such was the force of the explosion that it made me jump back, knocking our nappy bag into the sink. The automatic taps sprung into action and the bag began to fill with water. Meanwhile back on the changing table, Adlai continued to poop, this time narrowly missing my eye and hitting the wall behind me at an impressive height.
I called for backup. Faith entered the room and began the extensive cleanup operation. I made a grab for Adlai and pointed his butt into a nappy. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I was impressed and horrified. Unbelievably Adlai remained asleep throughout the whole fiasco. Suddenly the Swedish meatballs didn’t seem so appealing.
Sure, I left IKEA that day with poop on my clothes, but I had grown as a father and a man. Every parent has a poop story. It’s a rite of passage. And now I have mine.
