Diaper Duty

As I mentioned before,  I’ve never changed a diaper prior to having my daughter.  Now that she’s been here for a while, boy has that ever changed.  There are some pretty funny and interesting things that you learn when you get into the habit of changing diapers.

I doubt it’s specific to me, but I swear my daughter waits until I change her diaper to poop.  She’ll have on a diaper for a few hours, and happily pee into it until it’s completely soaked, but that’s all.  As soon as we switch her to a new diaper, you’d hear her fart and wham, poopy diaper.  The funniest thing is while I’m changing her, I’d swear she’d smirk at me…

It’s also strange to me what you can get used to after changing diapers for a little while.  While I’m still not all that pleased about the smell (despite my wife insisting there’s no offensive odor about it) I’m nowhere near as grossed out as I used to be.  I won’t describe color, texture, or consistency, but let’s just say that newborn poop is not what you’re used to.  However, I have grown used to it, and now I can clean up my little girl without gagging at the first moment I open the diaper.

In fact, since we’ve recently changed to cloth diapers (more like reusable, since cloth is far to simple a term to use for these things) I’ve had to hand wash her diapers after she’s used them, and let me tell ya… that’s an experience.  Having to scrap that stuff off into the toilet is… not fun.  I use a tissue, so I’m not poop diving, but for anyone who has ever picked up after their dog on the street (and that should be everyone who owns a dog) it’s an unpleasant feeling when you feel the heat coming off of that stuff.  However, you do eventually get used to getting the stuff on your hands and not freaking out and having to scrub your hands until you’re bleeding.  I can’t imagine how anyone with OCD can be around a baby.

That’s probably the most amazing thing about all of this to me.  I went from never having changed a diaper to hand-washing reusable diapers, and I’m not freaking out.  It was a pretty seamless transition.  I still make weird faces whenever my daughter poops, but that’s just the kind of guy I am.  I still love her though, I still give her plenty of kisses.  I just have to remember to wash my hands thoroughly after changing her.  Otherwise… pink eye.  Blech.