Poop

Perhaps one of the most unexpected initiations and outcomes of parenting is your advanced degree in scatology, or in layman’s terms, the study of shit. Not to be confused with eschatology, the study of the end of the world (which has its own particular brand of crap to muddle in), with a careful eye, the regular encounters with your little one’s end product can be one of the most expressive things to come out of their bodies. While it’s not quite the village soothsayer predicting inclement weather by picking through chicken entrails, it does make for a curious study.

When we were living in Seattle, Kaia was exclusively a cloth diaper wearing baby (actually a ‘combed organic cotton, Chinese prefold’ cloth diaper wearing baby. How’s that for belying our descent into the depths of yuppie madness), and we were doing of the washing at home, so we became very familiar with this ‘side’ of Kaia. Prior to Kaia’s birth some people would tell me how sweet smelling a newborn’s poop is. Needless to say, I thought they were crazy. But after completing the course of meconium, it was all strawberries and cream…that is, until the inevitable passage into solids channeled the vigorous spirit of continence into Kaia.

You see, this little guy doesn’t have a problem with his bowel movements. No. If you could bottle whatever this little guy has, Metamucil and other laxatives would be history. This boy goes immediately after every meal (and I imagine sometimes during it), and when he does it is with the full force of a pancha karma enema. We should all be so fortunate.

So coming to live in India, I expected to use my advanced degree in reading feces and the regular movements of my child to monitor his overall health and well being. You can imagine how empowered I felt. There should be some ancient Asian proverb about such preparedness—something like, “Wise father reads child’s smile from child’s poop”—but, I haven’t heard of it.

The first real test of my skills came about a week after we arrived in India when Kaia started shooting out white stuff that looked more tofu than tempeh. It struck me as an anomaly at first, but after a few days, I began to worry and chose to dance with the devil by self-diagnosing on-line. For those of us who turn to the internet for any random question or thought, looking for diagnoses on-line seems a logical step. However, as anyone who has googled a symptom knows, your abdominal soreness could mean indigestion, a parasite, or the initial signs of a fatal disease. Not for the faint of heart—or those of us with a sliver of hypochondria lodged underneath a fingernail.

What I learned didn’t help so much. I was either looking at the result of a change in diet that included much more pulses and curd, or a liver disease (avoid all parenting message boards!). While Madras claims to be one of the capitals of medical care in all of Asia, the thought of having to take Kaia to an internal specialist after just a few days here made me shiver. In fact, serious medical care has been one of the biggest fears that I have wrestled with both before coming and during our time here in India. The topic of fear is for a series of postings, and one that I would like to tackle in the next few weeks. But, as far as fear and poop goes, I chose to believe it was from the dhal that he loves so much. Fortunately, after a few days, things were back to normal.

So while this boy breaks our bank and negatively contributes to the size of Indian refuse piles with his constant supply of poopy diapers (now with disposables imported from Korea!), the Indian vegetarian diet has settled with him well. I am ever on the alert for diarrhea, but as long as he’s regular he’s in a pretty good mood. Wise father reads child’s smile in child’s poop indeed.

Why I Love this time: The number of times a day when, from behind, I watch Kaia run towards something with pure joy, his arms at 45 degree angles from his torso, palms open, his head bobbling up and down ever so slightly as he pitter-pats high on his toes, kissing the sky.