You don't want to sit next to me at dinner...

...because I only have two topics of conversation these days: poop and boobs. Just think, if I wasn't nursing the baby I'd only have half as much to talk about. My life has been so overtaken by both ends of Maureen's digestive tract that Monday night when Becca called and asked me what was going on, she then had to listen patiently to a three minute description of an unusually full diaper before I let her tell me that Ernest proposed to her. (!!!) She must have been thinking, "When the hell is she going to shut up about the poop?"

Probably never.



This post here is going to be about poop. (Apropos of nothing, pictured above is Robb's birthday cake. Poop is not the secret ingredient.)

Last night at work I answered the phone with my little spiel, "Thank you for calling the veterinary clinic. This is Barbara. How may I help you?" A very familiar voice replied:

"OH.

MY.

GOD."

I knew exactly what Saint Robert* was talking about. "I know, right?"

New this month Maureen's digestive tract has matured so that she only poops every three or four days. But with great maturity comes great volume. When she finally goes, it's a doozy. Total destruction. And Robb, poor Robb. He still gags when he scoops Sukey's poop, and he's been doing it for over four years now. Until last night he had only dealt with the aftershocks, not the main event. I don't think he entirely believed me.

"I used nine wipes," he said. "NINE WIPES!" If you weren't sure, that's a lot of baby wipes. You can tell from the CAPS and the exclamation point.



In other news we celebrated Robb's birthday, our wedding anniversary, and my first Mother's Day while Angie was visiting. (More on Angie's visit to come...) I saw this ridiculousness appear in the margin of my Facebook screen. Really? I should send him a message? How about I just have a conversation with him? Since, you know, he's my husband, and we live under the same roof. Stupid social media.



I kept Robb's anniversary present for weeks in a box marked TOP SECRET PROJECT hoping to make him twist in the agony of curiosity. It worked for maybe a day. And then he seemed to forget about it. But when he opened it--a family tree--he was very happy. There is a ring for each year we've been married and a branch for our little sprout.

[*Saint Robert will chronicle the total volume of baby poop he's cleaned up--and the many times it has caused him to dry heave over the changing table--in section IV, article 14, items A through D of his Application for Sainthood.]