Blue Sauce

When your kid is born the doctor hands her over and gives lots of advice, and somewhere in all the instructions is the recommendation to look at her poop every once in awhile to make sure it's normal. You're so overwhelmed that this seems like a good idea, and you move on to the next piece of advice without asking questions.

During the first month you continue believing this is a good idea because a newborn's poop isn't very stinky and doesn't change much. The next five months go by and it's pretty much the same mustard-looking poop day in, day out. And then your kid starts solids.

If you were nervous about starting solids because your kid might choke, you'll be even more nervous about it when you see what comes out the other end the next morning. And later that morning. And again at noon. And then several times in the afternoon. "How many whole pieces of carrot can you have left in you?" you wonder. "Is that an intact pea?" Last week she had post-avocado poop that looked exactly like second-day guacamole that's turned brown.

Somehow the amount of food that you put in seems to triple when it comes out. Half an avocado turned into five pounds of guacamole. The morning after she had green beans we both had to change our clothes before we were done with that diaper change. Solids also cause poop to smell worse than poop has ever smelled before. After the great Green Bean Incident of 2011 Harper's room stank for hours even though I took the bag of diapers straight to the trash.

I tell you all this so that you can understand the difficulty in checking to make sure that her poop is normal. If you can (1) contain the poop in the diaper, (2) hold the diaper without sticking your finger in the poop while controlling a squirming baby, and (3) get close enough to look at the poop without making your eyes water, you'll realize that you have no idea what "normal" poop is supposed to look like anyway.

For example, this morning Harper's poop was blue. Honestly blue. Maybe a tint of grey, but pretty much blue. Last night she had applesauce for the first time, and while I can safely say that the consistently looked pretty much like applesauce, I'm not sure if blue applesauce should be considered normal or not. A few startled moments were all I could stand before I wrapped up the diaper and said, "Bombs away!" into the diaper pail, but it was enough to decide that I'm done checking for normal poop. If the kid is smiling and babbling on the changing table, I'm going to assume everything's good.