What's in a diaper

Early this morning, after an exceptionally impressive diaper explosion, I put the sheets into the washing machine. Later when I went to switch the sheets to the dryer, I found some of that gel goo that is inside of disposable diapers. At first I thought that the force of the explosion had propelled some of the gel out onto the sheets. But as I kept picking up more and more of it, I realized I had accidentally thrown a disposable diaper along in the wash. How I did this I'm not completely sure. I must have considered changing Little P's diaper in the wee hours during one of her let's-get-mommy-up-at-midnight-to-play episodes, but never got around to it. Anyway, I pulled the sheets, diaper, and lots of little gel fluffs out of the washer.

Which made me wonder what that fluff is. After Googling, it is sodium polyacrylate, a chemical found in most disposable diapers. Some people use washable diapers because they don't like their little babies tush to be surrounded by this sodium polyacrylate. I might be interested in doing more research on this, after all, chemicals and babies don't sound like a good combo. However, Wayne has threatened to do absolutely no diaper changes if they are washable, so I will not be finding out how harmful this chemical is any time soon.

I did take some photos for your viewing pleasure:

The fluff (above) and washed diaper (below)

Unfortunately, I was not able to get ALL of the fluff out of the sheets and washing machine. Since my fancy washing machine has a cleaning cycle, I decided to try it out. After reading the directions in the owner's manual, I learned something new. Apparently I'm supposed to clean my washing machine once a month. I am also supposed to clean out the detergent compartment twice a month. Twice a month! That is every other week. Who knew it took so much maintenance to get your washing machine clean - so that it will clean your clothes.

So as it nears bedtime, I will make a note not to lose any diapers in the bed, and hope that the remaining fluff on my sheets doesn't itch too much.

Blowout Bloopers

Before entering parenthood, I realized babies pooped. I knew they pooped a lot. I knew that some babies even had blowouts, explosions, and catasrophic 'Honey, bring in the power-washer' moments. I just did not think that MY baby would be one of them.

Up until this point, my experience with baby's digestive systems had been primarily with formula-fed infants. For those of you that aren't aware, let me fill you in. There is a vast difference between the formula-fed digestive system and the breast-fed digestive system. The formula-fed digestive system finds it sufficient to clean itself out efficiently a few times a day, get cleaned and powdered by some loving caretaker, and the infant is quickly back to its busy schedule of eating and sleeping. However, in the breast-fed version, it is not unusual to have between 5 and 20 very liquid, mustard yellow stools a day. Alright, 20 is exaggerating...but only by a little. The breast-fed baby also seems to have more of what I can best describe as 'explosive' bowel movements: complete with sound effects.

So, back to the story, I had previosely been accustomed to a few non-explosive poopy diapers per day from babies. To my wonder, my dear Penelope has a very active, breast-fed digestive system.

Episode 1:
In the middle of the night I hear the rumbling of what translates to "major diaper change needed." I open one eye and proceed to wipe away the damage, put a fresh diaper on, and lay back down. I then hear the second round of rumbling, and decide to wait a minute to make sure she was through. After changing her again, we are ready for sleep, when I hear round three. So I did what any desperate, sleep deprived parent would: I let her lay in her poop. When the guilt was too much to bear after four and a half minutes, I changed her again, and spent the next hour laying in bed listening for what I presumed to be diaper change number 4. It luckily never came, and I eventually drifted off to sleep.
I assumed Wayne had been sleeping through all this, so I was enlightened when in the morning he said, "I felt SO sorry for you last night, changing all of those diapers." I just rolled my tired, puffy eyes and thanked him for his help.

Episode 2:
Early this morning, Penelope was finished with her last feeding session of the night, and I was looking forward to our last brief hours of sleep before getting up for the day. As a caring parent, I decided to quickly change her diaper first, ignoring the sleepy grunts she was making. No sooner had I gotten the wet diaper away, out shot a decent amount of the mustard semi-liquid. I congratulated myself on getting the clean diaper under her just in time, even if it felt like another wasted diaper. At least it wasn't on our bed.

At that point, Mount St. Penelope erupted again. This time, there was nothing any Pampers or Huggies could do. We had yellow lava shooting a foot in the air before it found itself stuck to me, my clothes, Penelope's clothes, and the sheets. At this point, I called it a night and gave up on ever going back to bed. I made a mental note not to look in the mirror, for fear any projectiles had splattered on my face. I simply rubbed my sweater sleeve across my face, and then added it to the pile of soiled laundry I was gathering for the pre-dawn wash.

At what age can you start potty training?