The Incident

The other day, I posted a status on my Facebook wall that said something akin to "Should I be worried about my kid's safety if she just ate some poop?". This is the kind of concern you never really think about prior to birthing a human, but will inevitably appear at some point. And there was a time where discovering poop on my own hands would have caused me quite a bit of turmoil. But I guess when you find yourself covered in various shades and textures of poo a number of times, you get over it. What's a little less easy to get over is when E's covered in poo.

Why is that? Oh, let me tell you.

You see, as E has gotten a little older, and out of the "all I know how to do is sleep" phase and into the "I don't want to sleep EVER" phase, she's picked up a few things. For instance, she started rolling over at 5.5 weeks. Pretty cool. She's noticed her hands. Also pretty cool.. except.. not. E noticing her hands has made diaper changes a little more difficult. Especially since "the incident" (Oh, hai Lost fan). She had one of those poops to end all poops. Which, of course, I had to change immediately. So I took her sweet little legs out of her sleeper and undo her diaper and start wiping everything up. But, as I mentioned, it's one of "those" and at one point it felt like all the wipes in the world wouldn't clean her up. So I wasn't surprised when, upon the fifth or six wipe, we had a malfunction and I had to fix the dispenser, requiring me to move my line of sight off of E for about .00003 seconds.

As every mom eventually realizes, turning your head is never, ever OK. Your child could be safely secured in a plastic bubble and strapped in, but something will happen if you turn your head. He or she will come up with the only possible way to cause trouble and execute in that millisecond. In my millisecond, Evie had time to put her hands in her messy diaper, and then directly into her mouth, where all things eventually meet their demise. I wiped up her hands, finished her diaper change, changed her outfit, (because it managed to land in the dirty diaper, too [and I've since taken to removing her clothes completely when it's time for a poopy diaper change]) and then washed her hands because I just don't think a wipe is good enough for poo hands.

And then I wondered if poop would hurt her. I mean it came out of her, how bad could it be going back in? So I scoured the internet. And let me tell you... this is not an uncommon occurrence. Nor is a child ingesting animal poop. Though I have to wonder what posesses a child to pick up and eat poop from the ground. E's case was simply an accident of "EVERYTHING IS INTERESTING AND BELONGS IN MY MOUTH!" (the experts aren't kidding when they tell you that exploration begins with the mouth at this age!).

The consensus seemed to be that it would be fne, and my mother, who has a biology degree, agreed. Plus it was a teeny amount of poo, and maybe she didn't actually eat it? Anyway, I didn't call the doctor (which may or may not make me a terrible mom, but my gut told me I didn't need to worry) and she's happy and well a few days later.

I have, however, learned many important lessons from this incident. Most importantly, never underestimate your child's ability to completely gross you out.