This Post is Brought to You by the Numbers 1 and 2

When I started this blog, I suspected there would eventually be a baby poop/pee/puke post (let’s be realistic here, I knew there would be many of them), but the important thing for me was that it be more than simply rambling on about how much a tiny person can expel.  What I did not take into consideration when formulating this mandate, however, was that tracking how much comes out of your bundle of joy (and whether it is pee, poop or puke) is of paramount importance.  You see, My Wife informed me that in order to be certain that all of his plumbing is in perfect working order, Sidney needs to have X pee diapers a day, Y poop diapers a day and as little puke (technically “spit up”, but if it went down and then came back up, I am calling it puke damnit) as possible.  From what she told me, and as best as I can derive from the literature she cited (that I actually read), X and Y are limited dependent variables (god I am a dork), calculated as a function of his age, in days, for the first week or so and thereafter a function of how much he ate at the immediate prior feedings (forget dork, I just turned into my Calc II professor, someone shoot me).  Puke we want at 0, but need it to be less than “a good chunk” of his immediately preceding feeding (pun intended; loose definition necessitated by reality).  Long boring story short, we count diapers and what was in them.  Now, aside from making me think “wow, having a baby involves a lot more math than I had thought”, this basically means that I spend a good portion of my day concerning myself with what, and how much, is coming out of Sidney.  Best laid plans, blah blah blah, here we go with a post about how much a tiny person can expel.

Our boy is currently eating between 2 to 4 ounces a feeding, and feeds every 2.5 to 3.5 hours on average (mean, not median … dear god I can’t stop with the math).  Contrary to my initial assumption (based mostly on wishful thinking), this does not mean he is going to expel between 2 to 4 ounces in combined pee and poo in between feedings.  What actually happens the majority of the time is one of the following:

1)  We get around 3 diapers between feedings: 2 pee diapers which appear to have been filled by a college student half-way through a kegger, and one poop diaper which contains enough excrement to choke a toilet.  I have no idea how he does it, but by all indications he is violating the first law of thermodynamics.  Thanks to a generous Paternity Leave Policy, I am able to spend Sidney’s first month home helping to care for him (I cannot overstate how civilized this practice is; seriously major businesses of America, the only reason to deny your employees this benefit is abject greed).  I mention this only because being home means that I see what he eats … all of it.  I can state, with only enough hyperbole for effect, that he appears to be pumping out a good portion more than he takes in;  I don’t know whether to call CERN or chalk it up to the magic of babies. 

2) We don’t get a diaper between feedings and find ourselves asking the kid to please pee or poo soon.  Why, yes, this one does lead to “well, we asked for it” moments … how ever did you know? More precisely, what ends up happening in this scenario is that we get so obsessed with whether he is “blocked up” or not that we start checking his diaper every 10 minutes.  The whole “your kid is going to pee on you” aphorism that every parent tells you?  The one you get sick of hearing? Well, turns out that 9 times out of 10 the reason your kid pees on you is that you keep opening up his diaper at the first sign of moisture because you are happy he finally peed.  The problem with this is that he’s most likely not done yet, so you open the diaper, he stops peeing … then starts again.  Cue sprinkler.  The same goes with poo, and when this one happens, trust me you find yourself praying to multiple deities that he does not fart before you can get the diaper back up (I call these “back blast” moments).  However you look at it, “ask and ye shall receive” takes on new meaning.

Now, I am reluctant to broach the puke topic out of nothing deeper than rank superstition.  With the exception of one “projectile vomit” incident, precipitated by not burping him enough, we have had a blissfully puke free existence for the past week and 3 days.  Will this last?  Reality dictates that, no, this will not last in the least.  Truth be told, anecdotal evidence (tales from other parents, countless books and various scenes from slap-stick comedies) points to quite a bit of puke being in our immediate future, much of which is likely to continue Sidney’s track record of violating basic laws of physics.  That being said, why tempt Fate/D’jinns/Vengeful Gods/Imps/Gremlins?  Unless typing that sentence is enough to tempt them … in which case mentioning the relatively puke free existence will have no additional effect.  Superstition is hard … can we go back to math?