You have to wonder what your life has become when you find it revolves around the bowel movements of members of your family. The Monster had a slight case of diarrhoea last week, which started with a vomit at daycare (thankfully it was at daycare and thankfully it was the only vomit, I find poo much easier to deal with than the chunky corn-infused stuff that comes out the other end for some reason).
It was pretty good timing, bless him, late in the day of his last day in the week, giving me four days to plug him back up so I could send him to daycare the following week. I know at times like this mothers should be thinking about the welfare of their child, and you always are, but in the back of your mind is the fact you're going to have to cope with taking some time off work as well. There's no worse feeling than the phone ringing at work and it's daycare and you know your life is going to be turned upside down for a few days at least.
Why should we feel guilty about needing time to look after our loved ones? It's an impossible question to answer. Perhaps in the discussion about paid parental leave there should be some inclusion that allows parents to take time off without cutting into their own sick leave. Most of us spend our days praying that we don't actually fall sick, imagine having to actually take sick leave to be sick yourself.
But back to the back end. The obsession with poo starts from day one, when you're hanging out for that first poo, that jet-black, tar-like meconium one, that apparently is a very good thing. In the following weeks, as breastfeeding is established, it's fascinating to watch the varying consistencies, the changes in colour, from peanut butter brown to mustard yellow and back again. When solids are introduced, rabbit pellets sometimes appear, not good, and the whole rainbow spectrum of colours comes a calling.
Ask anyone with young children and they'll have a good poo story. Floaters in the bath, paintings done on walls by inquisitive toddlers who have somehow managed to get their nappies off, explosive ones, you know the ones that somehow seems to be so volatile that they squirt all the way up the baby's back and out the top of the (always white) terry-towelling suit. And they're just a few of mine.
The Monster stills like me to wipe his butt, "only when it's sloppy mummy", and I know he's five and all and should be doing it himself, which he can, but I find it's a good way to keep an eye on how he's travelling.
I once reviewed a book which had a good poo guide in it, showing the varying states of poo and what they meant. It was rather disgusting, but quite educational at the same time. I mentally refer back to it as I perch on the stool, which the kids once used to climb up on to the toilet, which now that I think about it is aptly named, in the toilet with them.
I wonder how long he'll be happy for me to sit in the toilet with him, will I discover my 17-year-old is doing drugs because his poos have a weird consistency? (In something of a bizarre aside, when I googled meconium to check if I had the right spelling, I discovered that as well as the "first fecal excretion of a newborn child", meconium is also the name for crude opium. Spooky.) I think not. But in the meantime, he's happy for me to sit with him and read him a book or talk about his day. I'm happy when I hear a good plop, rather than a gush, and no one's the wiser. Except me.
Perhaps this is all a little too weird but parenthood makes you much more open to weird things. It's not just poo, but most bodily fluids. But that's copy for another day, is it snot?