Warning: this post is devoted entirely to baby poop.

They say nothing can prepare you for that first poopy diaper which is filled with meconium. (If you lost your lunch Googling that, I’m sorry and you’re welcome.)

Frankly, I don’t think anything can prepare a new mom for the sheer amount of poop, let alone where it ends up… the tub, your hair, the back of your arm, the stuffed animals, that $200 rug from Costco. My husband is great at taking care of our son, too, but he hasn’t seen or felt nearly as much poop as I have.

Then there’s the actual state of the poop. As a new mom, you get really good at identifying problematic poops. I’ve kept a log of metaphors for nearly every type of poop my son has had this year. And here it is, for all the world to see. Perhaps, somewhere, some new mom’s sense of humor is just as infantile as mine so she’ll appreciate this post.

The poop that never ends (Yes, it goes on and on, my friends)

I’ll always remember this poop. My husband and I signed up to take the Gottman Institute’s Bringing Baby Home Workshop, which consists of two days of classes over a weekend. We were supposed to complete the workshop in November, but our son decided he needed to make an appearance instead. So by the time we took the class, our son was 2 and a half months old. We were one of the few non-pregnant couples with a young infant.

Naturally, when we went to change his diaper mid-class in the back of the room, our son wouldn’t stop pooping. Poop just kept coming out onto the table. Like lava gushing from a volcano. At least two or three diapers were used in an effort to contain the poop that wouldn’t stop emerging. We eventually ran out of wipes. And all my husband and I could do is start singing “This is the poop that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends” much to everyone’s chagrin.

Thankfully, the store next to us had a travel size pack of 8 wipes so we could buy a few to clean up the mess. We still laugh about this one.

It smells like microwave popcorn

I will always remember this poop. About 5 months postpartum, my son was drinking a 50/50 combination of breastmilk and HiPP formula around the clock. His diapers were a mustard yellow and sometimes smelled sweet like yeast dough. (I warned you there would be metaphors.) Well, one night it smelled like microwaveable butter popcorn. I couldn’t help pointing it out to my husband. He took a whiff and swore off microwave popcorn. The man hasn’t touched it since.

Soft serve on the changing table

My son caught me off-guard one afternoon. He had pooped (surprise, surprise) and, thinking nothing out of the ordinary, I went to change the diaper. I put the new diaper in place and got the wipes ready. I pulled the diaper down. He grunted, pushing out what only can be described as soft serve. It just sort of oozed out. But instead of catching it in a Froyo cup, I quickly had to react and put the diaper back up while laughing uproariously at the circumstances.

Split pea soup will never be the same again

Unfortunately for my husband again, our son’s poop once resembled split pea soup. Mind you, I’ve never been fond of the soup. Looking back on my notes, this one seems a bit more watery than it should have been. It isn’t cause for concern now. As a good rule of thumb, baby poop should generally resemble the texture of hummus and, Lord knows, we certainly see a lot of that now.

*For the first 3 months of his life, I jokingly referred to my son as the Poop Shooter. He would poop mid-feed and I could hear it shoot right out of him, like a gurgle.