The Brown Badge of Courage

I’m sure you’ve all had a similar discussion with expecting parents. For me, it was Matt and Nicole. We’re chatting about crib sheets and Robeez, when all of a sudden the conversation takes a turn. In our case, it was Matt who asks the big question: “how bad is the whole diaper thing?”

You know what he’s really thinking: “just how much is poop going to invade my life?” Of course you say “it’s really not that big a deal. You get used to it” What else could you say? There’s no turning back for them at this point. But in reality you want to lean in, cast a steely gaze across the table, and say in hushed tones through clenched teeth:

“You don’t know the horrible aspects of poop. I’ve been through two children and I know. I’ve seen Diaper Genies overturned. I’ve seen poop in the tub, poop on the carpet. I tell you, poop is Hell!”

We all remember our first time. You’re wrapping the diaper up for disposal and maybe just once you wrap it a little too tightly. You can feel an odd sensation – a little warm and gooey on the back of your hand. You’re a little bit in shock and your brain doesn’t know how to react. But then the realization strikes you like lightning “OH MY GOD! I TOUCHED POOP. I TOUCHED POOOOOP!!!!!!”

You were green then, and it didn’t kill you even though you thought it would. Five years and two children later, you are a grizzled poop veteran. You have the battle scars to prove it: this scar is from the blow-out diarrhea when you were out of diapers… at Target; that scar is from the billowing brown clouds emitting from your son’s bathing suit at the pool. This one is from constipation. That one is from diarrhea¹. There are so many more scars, you couldn’t even count them if you wanted to. Heck, you’ve forgotten where you got half of them.

The biggest scar of all is on your very soul. Parenthood called and you responded. You’re not proud of everything you’ve done, but you did what you had to do. The tattered regimental flag still flaps in the breeze. You’re still standing. You ain’t been whipped by poop yet and you ain’t plannin’ to let it whip you in the future.

And if this crazy world has taught you anything, it’s that poop is just a part of life. Like being an orderly in the old-folks home, dealing with excrement is just part of the job of a parent and you do get used to it. But make no mistake, it is a dirty job. Some of you expectant couples may think parenting all glamor and glory, but let me tell you, boys:

Poop is Hell!

 

¹Footnote: the biggest poop catastrophe in Kimmel family history – probably in all of human history – occurred in 2012. Chiara was on stool softeners for constipation. Cody showed his admiration for Chiara by eating several. Cody always likes to wait until the last possible second – every trip to the toilet is an emergency – and this time was no exception. I frantically sprint with him in my arms, but in removing his pants his underwear snags on his foot. It was all over: what I swear was five pounds of very loose poop come out – all over him, all over me, all over the bathroom floor and rug and shower curtain. I couldn’t even move for fear of tracking it all over the house. So Andrea went about what I’m sure was the worst parenting experience of her life – while Cody and I took an impromptu shower. We hid the stool softeners from then on.

Just Air it Out!

One thing I just cannot figure out in my house is laundry. How is it possible that we do so much laundry? I am not exaggerating here, we average a load of laundry every single day. Add in the sheets and towels on Saturday and it’s up to multiple loads in a day.

Here’s the big problem with laundry: folding. Back when there was nothing but adults, you had big articles that filled the machine and you fold them. Now you’ve got a load that is the same size, but three times as many small articles. The effort to fold a small clothing item is the same as a big clothing, but twice as many fit in the washing machine. Now my daily past-time is folding.

Another problem: We’re also constantly running clothes either overnight or while we are at work (or, we had good intentions of finishing the laundry in the evening and we fell asleep). That means that clothes sit around for a long time and get wrinkly. That means a lot more ironing – ironing clothes that you used to not have to iron – and a lot more time wearing wrinkly polos. This has done wonders for my professional appearance (and career prospects no doubt).

The great mystery is: How is it that the kids can generate more than one day’s worth of clothes in a day? I swear that, in that load of laundry every day, there are multiple outfits for each child. Plus there are always things like jammies and bathing suits to help round out a load.

Actually, I know where all the laundry comes from. It’s their mother, who oddly enough feels like they should actually wear clean clothes. We’ll go to an activity at a friend’s house in the evening and she’ll want to put the kids in a new set of clean clothes. This is obviously nuts, since the “activity” seems to usually mean to “roll around in the mud” (Cody, when playing outside, can be relied on to find whatever may exist and put himself face-down into it; Chiara isn’t much better).

Instead, I think Andrea should employ a strategy from my days in the college dorm: grode clothes. You may remember the bonfire at Texas A&M before the terrible accident (I graduated the year before). Your “grodes” were the clothes you wore to the site where you cut the bonfire firewood. Your beloved dorm mates would do their best to make sure your grodes got as dirty as possible – not just with mud and the like, but preferably with whip cream and maple syrup as well.

Grode clothes were never washed. They were just hung out of your dorm window to dry out. Come to think of it, that was pretty much our cleaning philosophy for everything in the dorm room – just air it out. It was the cleaning equivalent of Hakuna Matata – and trust me we had “no worries” when it came to the cleanliness of our dorm. That this philosophy ran contrary to our primary goal of attracting female mates never occurred to us.

But therein lies the solution. The kids aren’t trying to attract mates at this point. Andrea and I aren’t either (you can tell as much by my wrinkly polos). So the kids can get their clothes as grodey as they want, and we can confidently bring them to whatever activities that may come our way.

For those of you who might invite us over but would prefer not to have two grodey kids tracking maple syrup on your living room carpet, just remember this tried-and-true technique for cleaning from Texas A&M’s Dunn Hall: Just Air It Out! Hakuna Matata!

Warning: Parenting is hazardous for your health

At my most recent doctor’s visit, I was diagnosed with borderline high blood pressure (pre-hypertension). Three years ago I was running marathons and the healthiest I’d ever been. Now we’re having discussions about the possibility of taking Lipitor for life.

It’s small wonder. I mean, taking care of the kids does not exactly put me in a Zen meditative state. When I’m fighting Cody to put his socks on after kicking them off for the tenth time, I don’t need a blood pressure cuff – I can feel my diastolic skyrocketing. And that’s just the stress dimension. Look at what kids do to the other aspects of your health:

Diet: I don’t know about you, but our diet pretty much consists of chicken nuggets and ice cream. That’s on a day that we can convince the kids to eat the chicken nuggets (sprinkles, yes sprinkles, on the chicken usually do the trick). Andrea’s and my diet doesn’t seem to be much better. The four major parenting food groups in our household have become: caffeine, ibuprofen, alcohol and Twix bars. Sometimes not in that order.

Exercise: If anyone has figured out exercise while working and parenting, please leave a comment, because I have given up hope. My doctor has recommended 30 minutes of brisk walking every day. Now that Chiara can ride a bicycle I had a fantasy that we could do this as a family. But the 30 minutes of brisk walking has become: 5 minutes of arguing with Cody that no, he can’t ride his tricycle and has to ride in the stroller; 5 minutes of slow walking while Cody suffers through the first block on his tricycle before giving up; approximately twenty 30-second brisk walking intervals between stops to pick up pine cones, pick Chiara out of the dirt, and say “hi” to passing dogs; 5 minutes looking for snail shells at the pond; heading back with twenty more intervals as before; 3 minutes of brisk walking while carrying a tricycle. Add on a shower and it’s just not something we can work into the schedule every day.

Sleep: Okay, sure, we could use more sleep. But listen, when we get the kids down at 8:30 we’re not just going to flip off the lights. Mommy and Daddy need our few, precious hours with just the two of us… and 2-3 episodes of Breaking Bad. So we’re running a sleep deficit to begin with, and then both kids interrupt our sleep in turn. And I mean they wake us up every. stinking. night. Having a size 11 foot in your gut isn’t great for rest and recovery, either, by the way.

Joint and muscle health: Any parent of an infant knows you’re going to be sacrificing your back to parenthood. The kids just get heavier from there. Mine are both around 40 pounds. Basically, I’ve had car accidents that were better for my neck and shoulders than the piggy back rides that seem to be required on a daily basis.

Time for quiet contemplation: Hahaha! I can’t believe I just wrote that!

So, bottom line, the prognosis for my blood pressure is not good. Nor for any parents’ blood pressure as far as I can tell. I knew having kids would be a lot of work, and expensive too. What I didn’t know was that they should come with a label: Warning, parenting can be hazardous to your health!