Well...Poop.

Hello Friends and Family,

In 1977, Tarō Gomi, published a book called, Everyone Poops. Tarō is correct; we all poop. This book has been given as a gift in earnest as well as in a light hearted joking manner on the occasion of someone’s first colonoscopy.

I have noticed in my life that not only does everyone poop, everyone seems very interested in poop. With one notable exception.

I was a staffer at Passport Camps in the summer of 2001. That was a very fun summer, but there was one thing I remember more than any other: No bathroom humor.

I don’t remember many of the conversations I had with co-founder, Colleen Burroughs, but I remember the one I had where I decided to test this rule with her and she wasn’t having it.

Talking about Poop

When we bought our RV (ugh…what a terrible memory) I was expecting everyone to ask me about gas mileage, but instead everyone asked me about dumping the poop.

They wanted to know where I would dump, how it worked, how often I had to dump, did it smell in the RV, did I get it on myself. So very interested in poop.

The same is true for my camping adventures. Instead of asking me about the hikes and how hard it was to climb a mountain or rappel off of that ledge, they want to know: Where did you poop?

Now that we have a baby things haven’t changed. I thought people would wonder about how we are sleeping or whether or not he likes our dog. But, no.

Everyone wants to hear about the diapers. How many diapers have you changed. Has he had a poop blowout yet?

(Yes.)

So, everybody talks about poop. Apparently all the time.

Poop is Important

Turns out there is a biological reason that people talk about poop. (Sorry, Colleen!) Poop is IMPORTANT!

There is a great episode of Latif Nasser’s “Connected” on Netflix all about poop. In this episode I discovered that scientists can learn a lot about us from our poop.

Disease shows up in our poop. During the pandemic a marker of where new outbreaks were happening was the amount of COVID-19 they found in the poop as it travelled through the sewer system.

As we are learning how to care for Mills, we were told to pay attention to his poop. The color and consistency can be an early indicator of problems. And sure enough when we saw some mucous in his poop last week it alerted us that he may be allergic to dairy products.

Under the doctor’s care we switched him to an allergy free formula and the rash on his face disappeared and his poop was back to normal within 48 hours.

We are also going to go bankrupt because this formula is going to cost around $1,000,000/month, but at least his poop looks good.

(Seriously, this formula is EXPENSIVE!!)

“I’m Done!”

One day we won’t have diapers to look at anymore and instead we will have a little boy who will scream from the bathroom: “I’M DONE!!!!” as a way for him to signal that he needs someone to wipe his little butt.

That will be thankfully close to the end of dealing with someone else’s poop in a…well…”hands-on” manner.

So, when people ask us what is the most surprising thing about being new parents I respond: “Well…poop.”

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