If My Brow Were Any Lower, I'd Trip Over It

I don’t care who you are. I don’t care if you are seven stories above every kind of low-brow potty humor, if you were raised by royalty and have never so much as smirked at a joke involving bodily functions in your entire life, once you have kids, poop is sort of funny.

Not at first, of course. At first poop is rather horrifying. Seriously, was anyone else surprised to learn that babies could shoot poop clean across a room? The first time Rollie projectile-pooped, I freaked out. I thought there was something wrong with him, or that he had some sort of genetically superior sphincter, capable of unleashing poop at a staggering velocity, breaking sound and smell barriers in one mighty blow. It's a pretty impressive sight, even if it is 2 in the morning and you're bleary-eyed and fuzzy-headed and your boobs are aching like a post-op implant patient.

But after a while, you get used to it, learn to listen for the ominous belly-rumbling and the tell-tale O-face--signs that you're about to get front seats in your very own Gallagher show. You're prepared for baby number two (get it?). It's not such a shocker when your darling little angle can poop on a wall five feet away like some kind of party trick. And when it comes out an odd color, purple, for example, you sort of appreciate the neat hue and make a note to not feed them blueberries for a while.

Soon poop becomes part of your daily life. And the more kids you have, the more intimately involved you become with poop. It's almost like another entity living in the house--you become aware of its comings and goings, you almost miss it when it's not around. You find yourself keeping track of the days since you've seen your friend Mr. Hanky, what color he was last, his bouquet, his consistency. You even find yourself discussing such matters with your significant other. Where the two of you would discuss your respective days, your hopes and dreams and plans for the future, suddenly you find yourselves IN the future, and it's full of...shit.

And once you've accepted that your lives are now full of it, it starts to get kind of funny. I find myself giggling when Rollie lets one rip. I don't know if it's because he's so blissfully unaware at the stigma attached to such public displays of flatulence, or if my sense of humor has taken a nose-dive into levels not seen since adolescence. When I see Elsa's face turn an alarming shade of fuschia as she grunts and strains to fill her diaper, I crack up. It's one thing I hope she grows out of before she starts dating. Imagine the nicknames she'd garner with that little display. They'd start calling her Smell-sa, The Super Purple Pooper Trooper, or worse. Poor thing. Someone should tell her.

I would, but I'm too busy laughing.