1. Your 3-month-old has a history of only pooping every 7-10 days; when she does poop, it is as if a mustard bomb has exploded. You are sitting with her propped in your lap, busily firing off emails. You hear a wet, farty sound that suggests a poop has arrived (it has been eight days). Do you:
a) Get up immediately to change the baby's diaper; you know if you don't, the mustard will, literally, hit the ceiling fan;
b) Answer just a few more emails. Hey, if she's not bothered, why should you be?
c) Give the baby away to the church down the street. Only a man of God can deal with a disaster of these proportions?
Answer: B. When you get up, poo is seeping out both sides of the diaper, front and back, and you are covered in poo. But, hey, your emails got answered and you get to keep the baby.
2. Your 2 1/2-year-old toddler has surreptitiously snuck a full pull-up into the laundry basket, and you run the load without noticing. Do you:
a) Express astonishment at the gigantic balloon that emerges from the washing machine after it has finished running, shaking your head in disbelief that the pull-up is able to hold SO much water, and fretting over what these things are doing to our landfills;
b) Curse at the million little particles of disintegrated pull-up collected in the bottom of the washing machine;
c) Continue to run several more loads of laundry without cleaning out the particles, so that all of your clothes and linens for the week are coated in pull-up pustules, which itch and chafe;
d) All of the above?
Answer: D. Goddammit.
3) Your toddler has yet again reached into her diaper and touched her poo. Do you:
a) Silently gag, taking her to the bathroom to wash her hands, reminding her for the gazillionth time that touching our poo can make us very, very sick, as you try not to overreact because you don't want to give her Freudian scat issues for the rest of her life;
b) Poop in your own pants, modeling for her how you don't touch your poo, and neither should she;
c) Reach into her pull-up, screech like a monkey, and throw the poo on the wall?
Answer: A. PhEW.
How about D.: Poop in your pants, touch your poo, then go dump your undies and wash your hands. Two days later realize that none of the horrors you feared have come true and you're still alive. Then tell Addie that though it's good to not be afraid of poo, most people will think she's weird down the road if she keeps touching her poo. Plus, it gives you stinky fingers.
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