In Which I Live Blog My Daughter's Bowel Movements

Below are a series of posts I put up on Facebook.  They were my first attempts at openly dealing with the normal challenges of parenthood with humor.  As you'll see, it started when The Baby was going through that life stage where she stopped pooping.  This was what lead to Poopmageddon that I wrote about previously, and which is referenced below.  I'm just putting them here for posterity - Facebook is an OK way to connect with and stay connected to people, but it's not a great place to write if you want it to stick around, and I definitely want The Baby to read this when she's old enough to be absolutely mortified by it.

Captain's Log 18 Mar 2016: Six days and still no sign of the enemy, Poop. The troops are, understandably, becoming restless. Our last battle at 30,000 feet is still fresh in our minds and we fear the Poops may be stronger yet this go round. We've contemplated fortifying our defenses - towels, rubber sheets, possibly a gutter and hose. Make no mistake - we will endure. We just wonder at what cost

Captain's Log: 18 Mar 2016 09:59: Nap 1 complete and still no sign of the enemy. It is tempting to cancel all plans for the day, but then the bastards have won. The troops are even more restless. I've started trotting out tired old cliches in an attempt to keep morale up, but it can only work for so long. WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF. AND POOP.

Captain's Log: 18 Mar 2016 11:19: The troops were shaken by two false alarms of such volume and stench as to defy belief. It set us on edge, but we had no choice but to commence nap 2 without engaging the enemy. We are twitchy, changing diapers often and double checking our fortifications. We must remind ourselves that this battle will not be won with diapers, but with perseverance and handful upon handful of wipes. I HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY AND IT IS US. AND POOP

Captain's Log: 18 Mar 2016:  I THINK THIS IS IT! STAY STRONG!!!

Captain's Log: 18 Mar 2016:  Oh the horror, oh the humanity!

Captain's Log: 18 Mar 2016:  IT'S OVER, IT'S OVER, IT'S OVER!!! Today marks a great victory over the forces of poop. It threw everything it had at us and we had not a blowout nor need to use an excessive number of wipes. Now a good commander knows better than to take too much credit when he knows luck was on his side - if she'd been asleep, or doing anything other than tummy time when the first salvo hit... Well, I shudder to think of what kind of damage we'd have been cleaning up. So we will take this victory but stay humble, ever vigilant against the forces of poop

Captain's Log: 28 Mar 2016 09:40: I fear we've become complacent. Lazy. After our handy win last week, we had a series of skirmishes - human-scale poops two days in a row that were neatly handled by the diaper. We naively believed it might be the dawn of a new era, an era in which we no longer need to live in fear of the Blowout, brought about by our dabbling with solid foods. Alas, it has been several days with no sign of a poop, and my fear of a blowout is rising. I must rally the troops and remind them to be vigilant

Captain's log: 28 Mar 2016 21:29: Once again, we've prevailed, but it was in spite of my dereliction of duties. As I feared, we had become complacent. Throughout the day the Forces of Poop toyed with us, sending false alarms that, while no longer unusual, were still staggeringly loud and noxious. I thought little of them. Too little. Naps came and went and still the poop refused to show its hand. Finally, this afternoon, when I least expected it, they struck. It was again sheer, dumb luck that prevented a blowout. I take no pride in this, but there is some consolation in knowing that on the battlefield, luck can be as important as skill. Staying vigilant this week will be a challenge

Captain's log 31 Mar 2016 07:53: It is with a heavy heart that I write of today's crushing defeat by the Forces of Poop. We were caught totally unaware, only realizing we'd been attacked when we picked baby up to say goodbye to Co-Captain Mom. It took only a moment to understand what had happened, but by then extensive damage was done, stretching from knee to armpit. Casualties included all clothing, the play mat upon which the battle was waged, changing mat, sheet on changing table and dozens of wipes. We were finally forced to retreat to the bathtub. Thankfully, the baby seems unaffected by any of this. Indeed, she seems to take a perverse pleasure in our discomfort and expressed it by splashing gleefully in the bathtub. I will never understand.

Captain's log 2 Apr. 2016 08:05: There was a minor skirmish last night while we slept. Once again, my luck held, as the damage was contained and there were no casualties. I am, however, vexed by a singular problem: The Forces of Poop are the product of a sixteen and a half pound baby, so how is it possible for that body to produce 20 to 30 pounds of poop, which is what I estimate lead to our defeat earlier this week. I put the question to my top scientific advisors, but they have no answers. Indeed, they feel the explanation lies outside the realm of science, and if I want answers, I may end up meddling with dark forces whose power I cannot comprehend.

Captain's log, 23 April 2016: An entire can of pumpkin pie filling.

Captain's log April 25, 2016 11:07: Our foe, The Forces of Poop, are changing tactics yet again. They were successful with their use of overwhelming force in the past, simply throwing more at us than our defenses could handle. We countered by sizing up and going with an "Extra Protection" diaper. It worked. They tried, but we suffered no casualties, even when they attacked at night. Now it seems they are trying to break us with chemical warfare, using a noxious gas that seems to be equal parts mustard gas, spoiled Indian food, and dead animal. It was like being slapped in the face with a rotten side of salmon. I am not ashamed to admit it: I gagged. But that is all they will get from me! We shall prevail!

Captain's log May 14, 2016 18:06: Reporting a most unexpected development. For nearly as long as I can recall, the Forces of Poop have been our foe. We have fought valiantly, winning some, and losing many. Never did I realize that we and the FoP exist in a delicate equilibrium. We hadn't seen an attack from them for several days, despite clear evidence that they were ready. It appeared some force was holding them back, and it was then we realized it - we need the FoP. We quickly deployed prunes and it seems to have worked. We've had a few skirmishes and we seem to have achieved equilibrium again. Thankfully, these skirmishes have ended in our favor, with no casualties. The Baby also seems to be relieved.

Captain's Log, 2 Feb 2017: After 15 months of land-based attacks, our foe capitalized on our complacency and launched a devastating attack in the bathtub. Co-captain Wife was on point during the attack and, while casualties could have been worse, she was still shaken. She evacuated Cadet Baby (pun not intended) immediately which certainly saved the cadet's cleanliness, but I fear her dignity may be irreparably harmed, as we will remind her of this for the rest of her life, most likely at any and all of her graduations and possibly her wedding, lest we grow complacent again. Stay vigilant my friends.

My Family or My Ideals

As you could see in my second-to-last post, I'm pretty bummed about our political situation right now.  I think we'll be fine, but I've never been more concerned about the environment than I am now, and I don't think those fears are unfounded.  This has caused me to reflect a lot about how I live my life.

A lifetime ago, I was an embarrassingly idealistic biology major at an ag school in Wisconsin.  I was going to teach high school science, and I was going to change the world one student at a time.  I believed this hard.  At one time, right after I finished watching Patch Adams, I turned to my parents, and with utter sincerity said, "I'm going to change the world."  I can only imagine what an insufferable little prick I must've been (I mean, even more so than I am now).

My god, what an unbelievable, unrepentant idiot I was.  I thought changing the world would take no more effort than it took to get As at a school that didn't give a + or -, so a 90% was good enough for an A.

As I got older, I realized that I don't have what it takes to change the world, but I still wanted to live my life such that I felt I was doing more good than harm.  I rode my bike everywhere.  I joined a CSA and bought local and organic.  I composted what I could, recycled what I could, and grudgingly threw away the rest.  I tried to fix rather than replace.  Of course, the cynic (realist?) in me knows that even at my best, we'd need 6 or 7 Earths to sustain that way of life if all us Earthlings lived as I was living, but I slept ok at night.

Flash forward to today.  I'm happily married, with one kid, and The Wife and I are talking about thinking about talking about Baby 2.  I love my life.  But when the snow fell, I stopped composting because shoveling a path to the compost bin would be too much work.  We drive an SUV.  We booked a winter vacation which will necessitate our 6th or 8th flight in the last year or so.  We still eat red meat on the regular.  After Baby 2, we'll pretend that our current house is too small and we'll look for something bigger, that will take more energy to heat and cool.  We'll probably shop for a bigger vehicle, or maybe a second vehicle.

I want to be the first to say, "BOO FUCKING HOO."  I try not to take what I have for granted, and I know that bitching about my CO2 emissions in the context of another vacation is insulting.  I know.  But this is my life and these are my thoughts.

These choices do occasionally keep me up at night.  The Wife is a willing partner in all these decisions, good and bad, but this will cause some fights in the future.  She will likely want a bigger house than I will.  That's a battle I'm willing to pick, but how hard should I fight?  There's nothing unique about it; you can argue that marriage is nothing but a series of battles exactly like this and you wouldn't exactly be wrong.  But it's like Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) says: "A good compromise leaves everybody mad."