1) It’s a girl. August.
2) Explosive diapers. How the heck did I make it this far without knowing that is a thing? The other day I hung out with some parents swapping stories and I swear to god it was the scars scene in Jaws*. Feel free to reassure me that these are scare stories that never really happen. Failing that, just tell me that babies emit a natural antidepressant/narcotic that makes you not lose your shit when they go Linda Blair on you. Whatever you do please do not use this thread to talk about your tour on the Indianapolis the time junior blew through your diaper stock less than halfway through a three-leg plane trip. I will quit again.
(*) I thought about mentioning the day Max ate something that gave him bad breath and the runs, but, like Roy Scheider, I let it be.
srv
Congrats.
Now you’ll have to draft up a “I’m really leaving now because of baby!”
Wag
Sure kids barf on you. Luckily, their diet is mostly milk when they’re most likely to puke on you, so when they DO barf on you, (and it will happen occasionally), it doesn’t stink like beer and cleans up easily.
Crusty Dem
It’s not so bad, or more likely, you get used to it. I knew I was a dad when my daughter was sick and lying on me in bed, vomited profusely and I managed to keep it on me so we didn’t have to change the sheets. Again.
Ok, not the best story, but it’s a great time, you’ll love it.
askew
I’ve had all 3 of my nieces/nephews poop on me. It’s disgusting but you get over it.
ranchandsyrup
Congrats Tim!
Ups and downs. Go with the flow and try to find the humor in it.
Wag
Oh, and exploding diapers? shouldn’t happen more than once, and makes for a good tale to tell the next prospective parent. Makes you sound a lot tougher than you really are.
Wag
Oh, and exploding diapers? shouldn’t happen more than once, and makes for a good tale to tell the next prospective parent. Makes you sound a lot tougher than you really are.
protected static
Congrats! And yeah, IIRC babies do actually cause rises in serotonin levels, so that’s something.
Besides, you’ll be too sleep-deprived to care. :-)
Gex
You’ll feel much better about the whole thing once the child is born. Everyone I know who has children has had their gross out threshold significantly raised.
And congratulations!
srv
And you can always outsource to John as he will need some training.
bemused
Just remember to wash your hands thoroughly after changing diapers using nail brush. No one warns you about lingering baby crap under your fingernails.
Todd
Think extruder, forcing substance out through leg hole.
Wag
@Crusty Dem:
now that’s dedication.
Stephen
I had my son pie on my face one time while changing his diaper, that was less than cool.
Zifnab
Masel Tov!
Crashman06
Congrats! Scary, ain’t it? Our first is due at the end of May. I’m frankly terrified of point #2. Been hearing a lot of horror stories lately.
Wag
Now this may be a BJ first. I’m getting ads for leak proof diapers..
Beats the hell out of the NRA ads on a gun control thread.
Comrade Dread
Congratulations.
Meh. You get used to poop quickly.
I won the trifecta from my son the second week he was home, as he pooped, peed, and vomited on me in the span of 30 seconds.
But yes, there is some sort of natural instinct that kicks in. And things get really awesome when they start talking and you can actually hold conversations with them.
Not sure I’ll feel the same way about that last point during their teen years.
MaryJane
I promise you’ll be able to handle whatever comes your way. Parents just do so. Congratulations!
eta: at least with a girl, you won’t get sprayed in the face. Probably.
Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal mistermix
Congratulations!
You will get used to the shit, trust me.
Darkrose
Grats!
Eric U.
@Gex: agreed that you get used to dealing with baby bodily functions pretty much immediately. Parents just like to tell poop stories. If it were all so easy, parenting would be a breeze.
Bizono
When the poop shoots up and out of the back of the diaper and stains the lower back area of the onesie, it is called a “rooster tail.”
You’re welcome.
Also, too – congrats, Tim.
danielx
Forget the explosive diapers, the ones you want to watch out for are the Chernobyl/Fukushima variety that glow in the dark.
bemused
Ha, ha. Other parents just love to share the worst baby puke, poop and snot horror stories with newbies. It’s what we live for.
Betty Cracker
Oh, I despise the miserable, heartless ghouls who tell horror stories to parents-to-be! At least you’re a guy, so you won’t be the pregnant lady surrounded by evil harpies telling episiotomy stories. I’m still mad at those fecking feckers, and my “baby” is a teenager now!
This is SO true! Congratulations! And double-congratulations on having a girl!
the Conster
@Wag:
My ads are for “re-usable adult briefs”. Do.Not.Want.
Alex
Just wait until you get to the projectile vomiting, speaking of Linda Blair. Oh, and that projectile vomiting is ON you.
As for the anti-depressant thing, I dunno. But just when you are trying to figure out where to bury the little monster, it will smile and say “dada” and you will totally fall for that shit. Until you finish paying college, at least.
Dave Anderson
Tim — congrats to you and Dr. Mrs. Tim — kids are amazing although they do change everything including your ability to locate every potential diaper changing and kid-friendly bathroom on a 600 mile trip before hand.
And exploding diapers — no big deal, that is why there is bleach and hot water.
eaalto
Here’s the truth. Sure your kids throw up on you and poop all over. But you don’t care, because they’re your kids. It sounds really gross now because you’re thinking of some generic kid. Here’s an example: imagine some random guy on the bus drooling all over. Gross, right? But when your sweetie’s drooling in her sleep, it’s kind of cute. Heck, you kiss her and get all that juicy goodness. Kid secretions (and excretions) are the same. No big deal, and kind of cute.
Mrs. WhatsIt
Congratulations! I won’t deny that diapers do explode, but I think something kicks in when you become a parent that lets you overcome the total gross factor. My kids are now 8 and 10 and were simply amazed (and grossed out), when last year, my son threw up on the jetway of an airport, and I instinctively cupped my hands to try an catch it. Maybe it’s just desensitizing. The amount of bodily fluids new parents are exposed to is more than the average adult sees. :)
It’s still going to be worth every minute!
Scout211
Congratulations to you and Dr. Mrs. F.
Hey, the good news is those early diapers are full of poop the consistency of bird poop. Easy to change. Really. I am serious.
The boy babies are the challenging ones, with all the fountain sprinkling action all over the place while you are trying to change the diapers. Although that is darned cute, also, too.
Comrade Mary
Hey, if you can pick up dog poop, you’ll be fine with a baby and all her adorable effluence. Congrats!
askew
The key is to buy the brand name diapers. Don’t use the generic diapers. They leak like crazy.
? Martin
Congrats!
Yeah, no, they’re all true. When my son was about 14 months old I came home from a long day at work and laid down on the family room rug. He toddled over to me and did that toddler butt plop next to my head, but missed a bit and glanced off my head. Turns out his diaper was well beyond critical mass and as he landed on my head, it all squirted out and filled my left ear full of shit. I grabbed him and yelled for my wife to take him and clean him up (who was laughing hysterically) and after a moment asked why I wasn’t coming to help. After explaining the situation with my ear which I was desperately trying to clean out (since I couldn’t hear anything out of it) she broke down laughing so hard that my son nearly fell off the changing table.
There was the time we all got so sick that we nearly admitted the 4 of us to the hospital because we were both right on the cusp of declaring us so incapacitated that we couldn’t care for the kids.
24 hours of vomiting from a child who can barely contain her crying. That’s fun.
And being so sleep-deprived that you miss the top step and take a full-barrel tumble to the first floor. That was when my wife was in and out of the hospital with our second, my son couldn’t sleep with her gone, and I still had a full time job to juggle around all of that. I think I got 8 hours of sleep in 3 days.
Oh, and when the 3 year old takes that long header across the asphalt and rips every shred of skin from his elbows and knees and is wailing in pain and there’s fuckall you can do about it except soak up the blood in your shirt. Delivering the news to mom and getting the ‘what the fuck did you do’ look until you’ve had a chance to explain it (kids > dad every time until they’re about 11, then you get equal billing). That’s fun too.
When the 2 year old stuffed a bunch of coins in the 5 year old’s mouth (she was feeding him cookies) and he’s unable to breathe, running, desperate, heimlich, puking up coins. Yeah.
It’s all worth it, though.
Dave Anderson
and yeah, it is amazing what my two kids can get away with when they look up at me, caught red handed, smile and my 4 year old says “I’m sorry daddy but this is fun” and my 8 month old just starts giggling uncontrollably at daddy’s concerned face as that is quite funny to him.
But just wait until a week or two after everyone is safe and sound at home, and she passes out on your chest as you pass out on the couch holding her tightly while keeping the elbow out for Max to lean on just in case he wants in on the snuggle action. Life is good at that point. Life is good.
gogol's wife
@Betty Cracker:
I have no children, and I blame all those women who used to talk about episiotomies in front of me when we were having our lunch at the FAA.
That’s not really the reason, but why do they love to talk about that, in gory detail?
scav
I think there’s also that moment where you find yourself eating things that have been dropped and / or are on the tray momentarily or have sneered at and think WTF? I used to use linen, silverware, eat distinct courses and have to tip the people that brought them to me.
Isua
Congratulations! (I’ve been lurking here for ages and ought to actually try posting for a change. I’m really weirded out by the whole upcoming diaper disasters thing too. I’ve got twin boys on the way that apparently are going to get chopped out of me in a month and a half. We are terrified. As my husband’s great grandmother apparently kept saying when his grandma was expecting his mom, “I’m just not sure this was a good idea!”)
? Martin
@MaryJane:
Yeah, that’s what I thought. The boy was pretty courteous about that. One one good shower from him. The girl… I can’t explain the physics of it, all I know is I had to repaint that wall twice.
Dave Anderson
@askew: Disagree — just get the decent generics — Costco is serving us well for our 8 month old, and Target did pretty good for our 4 year old. The only name brand diapers we’ve bought for ourselves are swim diapers.
Mrs. WhatsIt
Upon reflection, it should be noted that having a dog does help prepare one for the more unseemly parts of parenting. :-)
Petorado
Congratulations and good luck! Never had exploding diapers, but projectile diarrhea is another story. One day, over a glass of wine, you’ll laugh about it too.
The cool thing for summer babies is that once in school they’ll get to celebrate their 1/2 birthday. Mine gets a big kick out of that.
bemused
Some people have extra sensitive gag triggers to unpleasant odors. A friend changing his baby’s diaper ended up vomiting on the change table. Luckily, he missed the baby. Just practice breathing through your mouth instead of your nose if it’s a riper diaper than usual.
scott (the other one)
No matter how large a quantity of bodily fluids you’re expecting to encounter, it’ll be at least triple that. And yet, as others have said, it’s nowhere near as gross as you’d think—it may not exactly be a lot of fun, but it ain’t the end of the world neither, even if you’re squeamish right now. (But it does also last a lot longer than you think—as in, even after they’re potty-trained and whatnot, things like the flu can and will still cause you to have deal with other people’s feces and vomit.)
And yet it truly is worth it. Being a parent is at least twice as hard as anyone told me and at least ten times as great.
SatanicPanic
It’s not that bad. You want to know what REALLY sucks about parenting? OTHER PARENTS
Central Planning
You should try explosive diapers with rotovirus when you’re in the ED because your child can’t keep anything down. The doctor had to leave the room the smell was so bad.
Scout211
@gogol’s wife:
FYI, my daughter just had her second baby 1 month ago. They don’t do those anymore. Nope, they let ‘er rip. Ouch. But seriously, they now believe the healing is faster if it is normal rip. And most women don’t even tear at all when they assumed all women would.
/icky stuff that makes us all cringe
? Martin
But I’ll reaffirm that the poop is no big deal. I never got used to the puking though. It wasn’t common, but when it happened it was usually pretty epic.
“Look! A french fry!”
But 15 seconds after you’re done cleaning up the puke, you’ll put them right back in your lap knowing full well it’s probably going to happen again because it’s still worth it.
Dave Anderson
Yeah that is the thing that blows my mind — I know what I fed my kids and yet the quantity of output is WAY more than the quantity of input — the conservation of mass is being violated on a frequent basis.
Quicksand
@askew:
I’ll go even further.
Now is not to the time to try and save the world. You might want to look at environmentally friendly options, like reusable diapers, or diapers that use more renewable materials, or whatever. I know I did.
But I regretted it.
Pampers — they have, like, ACTUAL POOP SCIENTISTS working there. They know their, um, stuff.
Congrats Tim.
Tractarian
@ranchandsyrup:
Bingo. There’s nothing about explosive diarrhea or sour-milk-vomit that a little sense of humor can’t ameliorate.
zoej
It’s all true and it’s all okay. You love them so much you just don’t care. My son had a rough time when his twins were newborn, but he came out the other side and still loves them.
Anna in PDX
Congratulations. I have a new grandson named August who was born in February and when I saw the word “August” it momentarily confused me.
Maude
Re: messes and babies, babies are small. Now, if a baby was six feet and about 215 lbs, we’re talking elephant shovels.
ETA A baby will make and awful memorable for life mess and then look at you like, what’s wrong?
bemused
@? Martin:
The poop in your ear canal is awesome. Those are the times when you have to laugh hysterically.
For all the mess and sleep deprivation that come with kids, we’d do it all over again.
Tractarian
@scott (the other one):
This. Just absolutely spot-on. I’m gonna use that.
eemom
Congrats! Babies rule!
And poop isn’t really that much of an issue, sheesh. What would y’all have done back in the days of cloth diapers?
Betty Cracker
@Isua: Congrats! We’re all terrified at first, but just keep reminding yourself that people way less capable and with fewer resources than you handle parenthood just fine, and so can you. (I never had multiples, but again, if people as dumb as the Duggers can keep all those kids alive, you can surely handle two! ;-)
SatanicPanic
Oh and Congratulations!
JPL
Congrats! What a happy blog today.
roc
The absolutely do. You’ll be pumped so full of nature’s goofballs that a poop-explosion from *your child* won’t trigger remotely the reaction you’re imagining right now.
Congrats!
monkeyfister
Great news, Tim!
And the poop thing… just consider it an absolution of bad Karma from you were that age.
Just remember that a onesie is NOT an extended-wear diaper, and you’ll be OK!
scav
@Anna in PDX: Whereas the August in my world (kin) was born in October. Obligatory pee story, he managed it while being pulled out of Mom during the C-section. Dad was so proud.
noodler
So you are going to get this thing from babies r us called a diaper genie. And with newborns you can stowe like 30 diapers before emptying it. And you’ll have this ten foot long diaper sausage like looking thing to put out in the trash. As they grow you’ll only get to stuff like ten used diapers in that thing. Finally with the larger diaper sizes you can only fit a days worth before you have to change it daily. And by then, at 18-24 months, u r used to tossing diapers anywhere and by then you are also changing said child in the back seat of the car or on a park bench in broad daylight. Good times. They grow too quickly. But congratulations. (Two sons, 7 and 13)
Keith G
Super congrats!
You are a learner with a sense of humor. You will buck up fine.
And when things get really weird, once you have it temporarily settled down, you can take Max for a walk and play.
Randy P
Forget the exploding diaper scare stories. Here’s a more normal situation: You’ll know you’re a parent when you’re holding a kids butt up to your face and sniffing to check whether she needs a change, and you didn’t even give it a second thought till you catch normal (non-parent) people staring at you.
hitchhiker
What a happy thread! We had a couple of daughters ’88 and 90, so it’s been a long time, but what I remember is that somehow the what’s-gross rules change when it comes to your own kids.
You don’t like it when it takes 17 wipes to clean them up, or when they noisily fill their little diaper right after you just spent 15 minutes changing them . . . but somehow it’s just not gross.
So many rules change, all at once. It’s one of the awesome things about being a new parent. You can be late, always, is one that I remember. Nobody who matters would complain because someone with an infant or a toddler isn’t punctual. Also you can dress however you want, for the same reason. The perceived pressure to do lots of things just vanishes.
One thing to keep in mind: the sound of your baby crying is WAY more difficult for you than for anybody else. I didn’t understand this for awhile, and I would be really embarrassed when they melted down in public, thinking that everyone around us was suffering as much as I was . . . I think it’s in the genes, a visceral response to that one particular voice.
I’m so glad for all the BJ new parents!
? Martin
@bemused:
It took a minute for me to reach that point – mostly because I was exhausted, but it was funny as hell. PSA: it takes a loooooong time for the q-tip to stop coming out brown. It took hours, even with peroxide to reach that point. And you can, in fact, smell/taste shit through your ear, so your motivation to get it impeccably clean is quite high.
He’s 15 now and my go-to threat if he doesn’t do something is that I’m going to shit in his ear. It makes him laugh, and then he does it.
catclub
@Wag: Projectile vomiting on _strangers_ is more disconcerting than said vomiting on close relatives.
And it makes some restaurants off limits for a while.
Baquist
Congratulations!
I assure you, that after you think you cant take any more of this crying pooping drooling peeing individual, she will smile at you, and you will MELT. Instantly, just like that, your life will have more meaning than anything in the world.
I have a poop pic that was circulating the interwebs a while ago, and can’t figure out how to get it here. Lucky you, saved by ignorance……..
Tim F.
@monkeyfister: Thanks, but the last fucking thing I need is to work out the bad karma that I built up as a baby/toddler/kid/teenager. With luck I will leave that for my next incarnation as a rented mule.
raven
A new linoleum leach! Hell yes!
mai naem
@Dave Anderson: This is one of the most disgusting threads I’ve read on BJ. Costco/Walmart/Target – esp. Costco just private label the brand names. You just need to figure out what brand they are. I buy Costco paper towels. They’re quite a bit cheaper than Bounty but I would bet money it’s Bounty private labeled. And,oh, yeah, I almost forgot congrats on the baby girl.
West of the Rockies
I was workin’ in a daycare center… 1,100 babies came in for new diapers. Pampers disappeared in twelve minutes… My coworkers started poundin’, hollerin’, and screamin’ and sometimes the babies stop crying. Sometimes they don’t…. June the 29th, 1985.
? Martin
@catclub: Oh, that’s a good point. Tim, learn to tip really well with a personal apology to the waitress/busboy. (We always cleaned up pretty well, but there’s only so much you can do.) You’ll see them again, and you want them to remember the tip and your acknowledgement of their effort before you have them bring you food again.
catclub
@Tim F.: “but the last fucking thing I need is to work out the bad karma”
which probably means it is the first thing you need to work out, and are, with Max pictures, and such.
West of the Rockies
@Randy P: Good times, good times….
Soonergrunt
If you don’t have it already, make sure there are hand-held shower heads in the bathrooms. sooner or later you’re going to need to hose that kid down, for the very reason you’ve been talking about. But the good news that doesn’t happen anywhere near as much as the fun stuff does. Like the first time she looks in your eyes and smiles.
EriktheRed
Babies are wonderful little people, Tim.
Cherish this time and don’t let the stinky stuff ruin it for ya, because it ends quick.
MonkeyBoy
@MaryJane: “eta: at least with a girl, you won’t get sprayed in the face. Probably.”
Another argument for not circumcising infant boys or girls.
Anya
Congratulations, Tim F. You’ll be a great dad.
piratedan
so no discussions about poo as a fingerpainting medium?
TooManyJens
@Scout211:
Not routinely, but they still do in certain circumstances. As I know from unfortunate experience.
ranchandsyrup
The due date comes quickly, Tim. You’re at less than a Friedman Unit!!!!
EriktheRed
@TooManyJens:
We have twins and my wife had one, too.
Yutsano
81+ comments and NO ONE thinks to ask what MaxPuppeh’s opinion on this whole affair is!
The Japanese word for baby is aka-chan, or little red one. Never heard a more apt description for them. And OMEDETO GOZAIMASU!!
Anne Laurie
(1) Congratulations!
(2) Explosive baby digestive tracts are indeed A Thing. Forty-plus years ago, I was nine when my youngest siblings were born, and neither absorbent disposable diapers nor disposable cleaning wips had been invented. At least we had a diaper service, but when the shite hit the changing table, cleaning up involved wet washclothes & dunking the used diaper in a flushing commode until it was clean enough to stick in the diaper pail. (And if you think urinal cakes smell nasty, I still gag at the memory of the the bars used to disguise used-diaper odor.)
This is one of the top five reasons why I never had kids of my own. I’m guessing you were either an only child, or the youngest.
Scout211
@TooManyJens:
Sorry, I did whip that response out rather quickly and should have said ‘routinely.’
Sorry about your experience.
They were routinely done when I had my daughter in 1980. They are not routinely done now.
MomSense
Oh explosive diapers–know them very well. Especially fun when they are the color of pea soup!
We once had technicolor pooh too. Interestingly, crayons come out looking just like when they went in. Still quite a shock the first time you see 64 colors in a diaper.
But the dogs are not any better–like the time my dog ate pantyhose and I had to get two sticks and….I bet you can imagine the rest.
With three boys, dogs, cats and fish–I got plenty of war stories.
bemused
@? Martin:
A fond memory is after being out late and having a few cocktails, early in the morning an adorable boy toddler in his fuzzy jammies crawling into bed with us and he promptly sits on my head with a loaded smelly diaper.
Violet
Congratulations, Tim! You’ll get used to the gross stuff. At some point in your early years you probably thought kissing girls was gross, but it looks like you got over that.
Snarki, child of Loki
Two things you’ll get:
You’ll find it much easier to drop off to sleep, ignoring all the screams and howling going on around you.
You’ll have a much greater appreciation for what your own parents went through.
Riley's Enabler
Congrats, Mr. & Mrs. F!
Fab adventure you’re launching. It’ll be full of tears, poop, spit and more joy than you can fathom.
Mine (9) got his first stitches this weekend. He came through the experience FAR better than me…but I also got THIS jewel when he woke up in the morning:
“I am a TIGER with SHARK teeth”
You cannot buy this kind of fun. Congrats!
Gin & Tonic
@TooManyJens: It’s been 30 years, and it didn’t happen to me, but I was in the room with my wife and to this day I remember the sound of the episiotomy.
Gin & Tonic
@MonkeyBoy: Oh, cool. Let’s get started on one of those threads.
Omnes Omnibus
@Wag:
I am sure they came up on David Vitter threads.
@ Tim F. @top: Congrats.
Genine
Congrats!
Wag
@catclub:
Yeah, I can see that.
Southern Beale
OMG that is big news! Congrats!!!
Be glad it’s not a boy, I hear they pee on you every time you try to change a diaper.
Mnemosyne
Congratulations, Tim! I would be more worried for you if you weren’t terrified.
@Betty Cracker:
I think one of the things that put G off from us ever having kids was being trapped at a co-ed baby shower having to listen to one woman’s detailed, graphic story (complete with “and I looked at the video recently and you could totally tell it was the 1980s because I had this enormous bush!”)
Obviously, he wasn’t going to have to deal with any of the physical stuff from pregnancy, but it made him very nervous about my ability to deal with it. And, frankly, it did the same thing to me.
JPL
Tim, Remember to buy your shot-gun now to protect your daughter from all those beaus with bad intentions. I hear the President is going door to door to take those away.
Southern Beale
@MomSense:
OMG.
Mnemosyne
Also, I can’t find the quote right now, but Anne Lamott says something in Bird By Bird about how she wrote her book Operating Instructions because she couldn’t find any books that explained that sometimes, although you love your baby completely and totally, sometimes you want to pick it up by the ankles and swing it around your head like a bolo. But you repress the urge, and you move on.
Southern Beale
Also, Clorox is your friend.
Yutsano
@Southern Beale: I was in a conversation with an FB friend (his wife is expecting twins though it’s not their first) and I mentioned my biological clock is virtually non-existent. This thread isn’t helping that.
TooManyJens
@Gin & Tonic: Whoa. I have no such recollection, thank goodness. Although I got one hell of a shock when I was looking through the pictures on my camera and realized the doula had grabbed it during the delivery and had captured everything, OMG.
Tim, congratulations, and seriously, the poop is no big deal. It’s not exactly that it stops being gross, you just don’t care so much.
Anne Laurie
@MonkeyBoy:
My sibs weren’t circumcised, and they could still shoot almost six feet without warning, even when they barely weighed five pounds and looked too frail to breathe without the blue veins in their temples swelling.
scav
Bladder control, suddenly it’s all about bladder control. Birds and babies nesting in beards. What next.
Reformed Panty Sniffer
Tim:
Congrats to you and yours. Sleep now.
As father of 1 girl, a few tips:
1. Explosive diapers is a real phenomenon; do not turn your back on the kid on the changing table.
2. Girls poop, a lot. (They never admit it though.)
3. Girls can pee upside down.
4. Carsickness is also real, especially if it involves feeding the kid birch beer and cheese curls.
5. Girls fart and talk in their sleep. Tape it.
6. Get a big tub of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste and keep it handy until the kid is out of diapers.
7. At a certain point you will get blamed for most everything.
Three things to always check when the kid’s cranky: they are either tired, hungry, or have to poop. This works from birth to infinity.
Cheers
eemom
Unmedicated labor here, both times. Episiotomies got nuthin on that shit.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: Gah!
@Southern Beale: And raisins are transformed back into grapes when swallowed whole and passed through magical tot intestines. Amazing!
YellowJournalism
As long as it doesn’t resemble the scar stories scene from Lethal Weapon 3, I think you’re good.
Congrats and enjoy it now while your worry is poop in a diaper. The fun times are getting to rinse out poppies undies during potty training. When you know how many shakes it will take to dislodge certain types of turds or when to just toss the underpants, you’ve become a potty training pro.
TooManyJens
@Reformed Panty Sniffer: Re: butt paste, I have to say that we used cloth diapers (this kind, actually pretty easy to deal with if you can do laundry in your home), and my daughter had diaper rash for a grand total of about two days, ever. Those diapers were great.
Karounie
Congratulations, Tim F!
Dealing with leaky babies is also good practice for caring for senior cats and dogs.
Mnemosyne
@askew:
IANAP (I am not a parent) but it always seemed to me that the time to get the cheapo diapers was a month or two before you started trying to potty train so the kid can feel that there’s a connection between peeing/pooping and feeling uncomfortable or wet afterwards.
But I haven’t been able to convince any parents I know to try out my theory on their little guinea pigs.
TooManyJens
@Karounie: IME, the baby was 100x easier to deal with, excretionwise, than the elderly cat.
Southern Beale
Holy fucking shit the explosive diaper that is the Daily Caller is in deep trouble now:
Naturally Daily Caller is denying it … GRAB THE FUCKING POPCORN … sorry to trample on Tim F’s good news with this but there wasn’t an open thread, so ….
Omnes Omnibus
I regret commenting in this thread and shall move on to another that is less, shall we say, graphic.
Karounie
@TooManyJens:
For us, so far it’s been neck and neck – but I am beginning to discuss with the cat the possibility of him wearing diapers.
Loneoak
Congrats!
Put a pair of scissors in the diaper bag so you can cut the onesie off without pulling it over her head.
Not kidding.
Southern Beale
@Yutsano:
Yeah just last night Mr. Beale and I were at a hockey game and a little kid in front of us was being really annoying. We looked at each other and I said, “I’m so damn glad we never had children.”
Terrible, I know. But hey, some of us have to make up for people like the Duggar’s who are overpopulating the planet.
:-)
jenn
Congratulations!
.
Also, bless you all for the funny stories. I was laughing so hard at Martin’s poop in the ear story, I think I stopped breathing for at least a minute!
Loneoak
@Quicksand:
Huh. I hate the Pampers and friends because they stink to high hell. I think they make them stink more than necessary so you change them more often. My kiddo came home in some name brand variety from day care the other day and he just reeked of chemically urine. We use either a biodegradable variety or cloth. And I’m going to sound like a horrible yuppy, but the Whole Foods brand is actually really good for disposables and is a reasonable compromise that doesn’t require strapping awful chemicals to your kid’s rear end.
J.W. Hamner
Gratz! Leos rawk.
Pooh
Hey congrats Tim, we’re having our first in August too. Not finding out before.
West of the Rockies
Re: my post (#75) — it sounded funny in my head. Does no one recognize a parody of Captain Quint’s Indianapolis speech from Jaws? I guess if you gotta explain the joke, it ain’t funny.
I hope you’re correct, Southern Beale, that the story will cause trouble for the travesty known as the Daily Caller. I suspect the story will go away though. Maybe if the congressman in question were of a higher profile, it might not, but we’ll see.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
Don’t worry, you’ll get to be the Fun Uncle someday (if you’re not already, I can’t remember). G and I get to be Fun Uncle and Fun Aunt, and we even get to be that for a few kids we’re not actually related to.
I like hanging around with kids but I just don’t think I could handle the 24/7 responsibility without melting down. Once the poopy diaper happens, it’s outside the realm of my responsibility as Fun Aunt.
Emma
I never wanted children and I always try to get out of attending baby showers, but I have heard some stories. Funny thing is, everyone is smiling while they’re telling you aboutthat time…
Mazel tov!
scav
@Southern Beale: Guard has got it too. But, unlike the adorable poop souces of this thread, that source has issues. He’s accused three (4?) other entities as well, if what I’ve heard is correct. Univision? Not ones I recognized. Apparently the police are looking through nearby videocams to see if Carlos resolves on film. should be interesting watching it unfold.
Dee Loralei
Congrats Tim and Mrs Dr Tim!
evap
Congratulations, Tim! Daughters are great — I’ve got two of them, both grown (19 and 22). When I look at my beautiful, intelligent, charming, kind, and loving daughters I try to imagine how my husband and I managed to pull it off. The hard part for me was the teenage years (13 – 17 or so) when they didn’t want anything to do with us. We’re all good friends now :)
You get used to the poop. I could never change other kids’ diapers, but somehow I didn’t mind changing the ones on my daughters. And remember, the poop of breast-fed babies doesn’t stink — it’s really true. Once you switch to formula or start giving them food, you notice the difference.
Yutsano
@Southern Beale: It’s funny because I’m actually really good with kids and have been told over and over again I’d be a great dad. But the desire just isn’t there. If I ever hitched the NYD there would be some pressure to reproduce (he’s the oldest son of a respectable NYC family so I know he gets that pressure from his folks) but since I’m still not in a marrying mood that ain’t happening.
@Mnemosyne: Youngest brother and SIL are trying (though not very hard as both are still in school) but no nieces or nephews yet. I’m thinking once she can quit her job and focus on just her school (in about a year or so) it’ll happen.
BAtFFP
Congratulations Tim! This is an exciting time for you.
Since we’re talking diapers now (best thread topic EVAR) I can tell you this: baby diapers are a snap. They’re so small, and no matter how much poop they hold it’s still a baby-sized amount.
I spent 3 years changing adult diapers before I ever got to change a baby. Did you know you can pick up a baby?? They’re that small! You never, ever have to get 2 or 3 other full-sized adults to help you turn the baby before changing. Nor do you have to ask the baby for permission, negotiate the pace of the diaper change, or request that the baby stop groping your breasts while you try to clean poop off them. Or clean poop out of a stage 4 pressure ulcer. Or clean poop off a woman who is yelling “fck you b1tch, I hope you die.” Fun times.
The first diaper I ever changed was on a severely developmentaly-delayed 35 year old women who was getting her period. Did I mention that changing a baby is AWESOME?
/nursing
Dr. Squid
Actually, there might be something in kid puke that keeps you from losing your shit. Every time the little ‘uns at that age spewed on me, regardless of which end it came out of, I could only shrug, laugh and clean up. It’s what they do; roll with it.
ribber
IF YOU HAVE EXPLODING DIAPERS, IT’S TIME TO MOVE UP A SIZE. That is all. It’s pretty simple.
raven
Goddamn, the second day of March Madness and. . .
quannlace
It’s called new baby smell!
opie jeanne
@Wag: I raised three* and I never heard of explosive diapers. I changed one diaper on the first child that made me want to resign, but other people restrained me from putting the kid in the dumpster along with the diaper.
Tim, You’ll be fine. Just don’t do what I did when the youngest started throwing up between the driveway and the house: I held her at arm’s length to try to keep it off of me and threw out my back.
*They survived my parenting.
stevie
I have been vomited on. She peed down my back when I gave her a shoulder back ride. Yes her diaper leaked poo onto my favorite shoes. Yes I found a penny in her diaper ore than once too. She is now almost 25 and those are all funny stories we tell. Yes your stomach is much stronger than you think when it comes to taking care of your little one.
LarryB
Here’s my pro parenting tip: Someone for sure will gift you with 6 months of diaper service as a baby present. Run out and get disposables! Reserve the cloth diapers as awesomely cool, eco-friendly, re-usable paper towels. They are the best counter wipes ever.
OzarkHillbilly
You are sooooo fwcked. But,…. you are gonna love it. My sons are the best thing that ever happened to me. The only thing better? My grand daughter.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Congrats.
Not much to add that everybody else hasn’t already covered, except maybe for this:
Go out to eat at restuarants as much as you can while you have an infant, because when everything is right with the world they sleep a lot (and are adorably cute while doing so) and thus you get to enjoy peace and quiet for long enough to enjoy those meals, even at a fancy place. With toddlers, not so much. Then it becomes World War Z just getting them to sit in the fucking highchair, and you learn how to eat a 3-course meal in 5 minutes or less.
liberal
@protected static:
As a parent of two small children, I can attest that by far the #1 negative issue for parents is sleep deprivation.
Shit coming out of diapers? Negligible.
liberal
@Yutsano:
Steven Pinker once wrote that it’s not necessary for us to want to have kids in order for the race to continue. It’s quit sufficient (well, at least in the days before contraception) for there to be (a) a desire for sex, (b) fondness for the little shits once they make their appearance.
liberal
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Yeah, I’ve more or less completely given up on the concept of “enjoying food” for the time being.
Susanne
Smile as you change her, kiss her little hands, and tell her she’ll be doing the same for you in 60 years.
Mazel tov.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
First, congratulations! Second, you will probably find, as I and most other parents do, that your love for her will allow you to stomach stuff that you would never, ever deal with from any other human being, including your spouse. I have been known to faint at the sight of blood–it’s almost autonomic with me. But if it’s my kids’ blood, I’m able to cowboy up and deal. I am pretty germaphobic and nothing, I mean nothing grosses me out like pooh. Both my kids went through phases that produced some, let’s call them “results”, that even nurses were horrified by. But I was all in, if you’ll pardon the visual. Maybe love is just a powerful anesthetic. In any case, I hope you find it so as well.
SiubhanDuinne
@Stephen:
Wait, your son thinks you’re a BJ troll?
Phoenix_rising
If I’m tough enough, so are you. 13 years ago, I was a fastidious individual.
My ex-lover, who was my kid’s first pediatrician cuz that’s how we roll among our people, examined the kid and said, “She’s got kind of a soft gut for an 8 month old. Any chance they forgot to refrigerate the dewormer in Cambodia?”
We all laughed and laughed at the idea that there is refrigeration in Cambodia, which at that time was hilarious. So she administered a dose of the medication that she knew had been handled correctly.
You guessed right if you said, “But wait, getting on a plane with a baby who weighs 13 pounds, .7 of which may turn out to be parasite life, is a dumb idea!”
Try wiggling exploding diapers in the head on a 737 for a real thrill. In parenting, what doesn’t kill you makes for a hell of a funny story.
JCT
Awesome news, Tim F. – congrats to you and the new mom. Cool to start with a girl, mine is 22 and when she called my husband the other day to wish him Happy-B-Day he was gushing for hours. Still her daddy’s baby.
Nothing beats this. Ever. Though I have been told grandkids are awesome.
And don’t sweat the poop stuff – that’s what a sense of humor is for.
Mazel Tov.
Tonybrown74
Congratulations!!! To good health and much love!
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
How does he explain people who have no desire to have intercourse with the opposite sex wanting to raise children anyway? It’s not like it’s a new thing — it’s been pretty well-known throughout European history at a bare minimum.
Xboxershorts
Exploding diapers are nothing compared to the forgotten wrap around. Leave your kid in the swing for just 5 minutes too long and the caked on wrap around becomes embedded.
I think this is where “lather, rinse, repeat” originated.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Dr. Squid: You’re right, Doc. I have a black marino wool sweater made for an RAF pilot back in the big deuce. A prized possession when my oldest puked some white shit on it which won’t come off. I only wish I still fit into it. Wore it like a badge of honor for many years.
Svensker
I won’t mention the time our son projectile vomited all over the wall and his bed after snacking on tuna salad.
You get used to it. Nature’s got ya covered with hormone levels or some dang thing.
Just wait until she’s borrowing the car to drive a hundred miles every weekend to see the S.O. You will know fear. And not be able to do a damn thing about it.
Matt McIrvin
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Yeah, when they’re really little they can effectively be treated as luggage as long as they’re asleep. This doesn’t happen on any civilized schedule, but they can stay asleep through a restaurant meal, sometimes.
What makes up for the poop is the feeling of a tiny newborn sprawling on your chest. Until she decides to pull herself up by your chest hair, which is probably a millions-of-years-old primate instinct.
Ash Can
Tim, I am the most squeamish person on the planet, and even I can affirm that yes, when it’s your own kid, the messes are a cinch. Wiping your kid’s butt is like wiping your own. It’s just no big deal.
Also too, this is one of the funniest damn threads EVAH.
Isua
@Betty Cracker Thank you! I love your advice – it is indeed good to remember that all sorts of people survive having babies. If idiots on TV can do this, I can do this.
Original Lee
@LarryB: This. Also, even though we used disposables for the actual baby butts, we had a diaper service for the first 3-4 months because cloth diapers make the best burp cloths, and you use a TON of burp cloths.
We discovered that we had to try out different brands of disposables until we found the one that worked well for each kid. Dunno if it was the topology of the kids were so different from each other or what, but one kid used Pampers and one kid used Luvs, and never the twain did meet. If we used Luvs on the Pampers kid, diaper rash city and lots of leaks, and vice versa. So be prepared to be flexible on this issue (as is true with parenting generally).
Oh, and Mylicon is awesome and works well on adults, too!
Of course, Bill Cosby says it all.
But in a (vain) effort to top Bill Cosby:
My spouse and I and our six-month-old daughter were visiting family who lived out in the middle of nowhere. The nearest retail venue that sold baby-specific items was over 50 miles away, so we made sure to stock up on diapers and similar items on our way to their house.
Over the course of our visit, the daughter started teething and it became obvious she was in pain. We tried Tylenol, but there’s a rebound effect when it wears off, so for every dose of Tylenol, everybody got only about 2 hours of relief.
After about three days of this, my aunt persuaded us to lay off the Tylenol and try a home remedy, namely to rub some liquor on the baby’s gums. It was late at night, and the only alcohol in the house was an unopened bottle of amaretto. By that point, we were so tired that this sounded like a good idea. And it did work at least as well as the Tylenol.
BUT about twelve hours after the first dose of amaretto, we became aware of a certain, um, tinge to the normal baby poop aroma. This got progressively worse as the day wore on, until the baby was surrounded in a blue fug not dissimilar in appearance from the air above those little heaters they use with chafing dishes. I practically had to put on a gas mask for diaper changes, and the dirty diapers were promptly sealed for posterity in Ziploc bags, which were immediately run out of the house and down the driveway to the trash can.
My aunt sent us a bill for $500 about a month after we returned home, because she had had to have her drapes and upholstery professionally cleaned to get the aroma out. We agreed to pay half, because even though it was our baby, the amaretto was HER idea.
Original Lee
Oh, and congratulations to you both!
Gretchen
Mom of 4 here. Babies are wonderful, but grow up much too soon. My twins could tag-team me, taking turns sleeping so one was awake all the time. But now they’re grown, and one of them is going back to NY in the morning after a short visit, and I’m trying not to be weepy about it.
Quint
You know the thing about a baby, Chief, he’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eye.
Cathie from Canada
@Original Lee: Made me laugh out loud! I recall a similar experience with brandy…
Here’s my advice for the new parents:
When I was pregnant with my first, I read someone’s comment to the effect that babies offer one of the few opportunities we have to learn to be unselfish.
And I thought “but what if I don’t WANT to learn to be unselfish?”
Too late by then, of course.
This turned out to be one of the truest and best things about having children. It is one of the few chances we get in our lives where we have to become a kinder, better, more mature person. It’s partly the changing diapers and cleaning up vomit that does it . . . and did anyone mention cradle cap yet? And those awful little bulbs you have to use to extract the mucous from their little noses when they have a cold?
But one of the things I looked forward to was getting involved in something new because of our kids — for example, my daughter was a real athlete and so we learned about softball and baseball and basketball and met a whole lot of great people, other parents and their children, just because of her interests. And my son taught me how tennis was scored, so I can now enjoy watching this sport, too. They both majored in philosophy in university, so what interesting conversations they have.
Debbie(aussie)
Tremendous news! Children are a gift, worth all the poop sleeplessness and tears.
cckids
@Quicksand:
Oh, yes. With my first, someone gave me a diaper “subscription” service for 3 months. Cloth diapers have a few benefits, but the poo ones? Yikes. You had to pay for any diapers you didn’t turn back in, and more than once I’d find myself saying “Would I pay $1.00 to not have to rinse this out? EASILY”. Got kind of expensive.
Lee
I still remember the joy I felt when my youngest was potty trained.
ThresherK
Congrats. (Better late than never.)
Birthmarker
Really, the exhaustion is the worst part. And whoever said above the diaper thing only happens once is wrong. it happens at minimum every time the doctor prescribes the pink stuff.
The day my son puked all over my hubby while in the recliner, and I told him not to move so as to contain the mess, and he complied, was the day I knew for sure the man loved me.
ET
Personally I am looking forward to the post you write semi-describing your first explosive diaper. Good writers make even that an hysterical read.
bumper
@Bizono: What is it called when it makes it all the way up to the hair? (Yes, it’s happened here)
Tehanu
Here’s the deal. When a tiny person is completely, utterly dependent on you for everything — which they are for the first year or so — and it is your very own little tiny person — you not only don’t care about the poop and the messes, you actively want to help that little person. I won’t say it’s a pleasure wiping up poop, but it is the very greatest pleasure in the world to care for the baby’s needs, no matter what they are. And it is over far faster than you think it will be, so for heaven’s sake, enjoy ALL of it, including the sleep deprivation and the midnight diaper changes.
Also, have a cloth diaper on your shoulder at all times to obviate any burp messes on you.
Congratulations!
JeremyH
Hi Tim,
Many congratulations. I am the proud father of a 19 month old, and I can tell you it’s a great ride. Enjoy it!
Two words of advice for you re: explosive diapers: Bum Genius.
It’s a brand of cloth diaper – waterproof shell with re-useable microfiber liner. Absorbent and extremely resistant to blowouts. We had not a single blowout with Oliver using those diapers – the worst we had was slight leakage of pee (but only slight, I promise).
Cloth diapers require more work, for sure – more laundry for the next few months, but only a load every couple of days – but they are way less smelly and gross, they’ll save a crapload of money in the long term, and won’t contribute to the landfill. Worth the upfront investment, IMHO.
Congrats again!
Steve
My daughter had a diaper blowout while sitting on my lap, an hour into a flight from Baltimore to San Diego. You haven’t lived until you’ve stood naked in an airplane bathroom and scrubbed baby shit off of cargo shorts.
This was when I learned to always travel with at least one spare outfit for me in addition to the ones we brought for her.