Penny

It's a moment that happens to all parents.

If you are a parent, you will laugh. If you are not a parent... I suggest you don't read any further if you are faint of heart or weak of stomach. At the very least, this isn't something to read while enjoying your milk and cookies.

Trust me.

See, I was holding Penny. Cuddling her. Enjoying her warmth and that milky baby smell that seems to go straight to my brain and render me a babbling baby-talking idiot. She was curled up against my chest, her cheek resting on her little curled fist.

She coughed. Wetly. And then made another noise. I looked down, and she had spit up - right down my cleavage.

Ew.

Well, it's just milk. My own milk, for that matter. I got the spit cloth and cleaned up, and carried on.

A bit later, I heard her fart. (Penny, like most newborns with their immature digestive tracts, farts frequently and loudly enough to make an eight-year-old boy jealous.) Only this fart sounded, as Matt so aptly puts it... juicy.

Oh, boy. Poop. I carried her upstairs and laid her on the changing table. Her little brow furrowed, and she grunted, and I heard another "pantular explosion," as they are known around here.

I waited a little longer, but she seemed to be done for the time being. So I unsnapped her onesie, pulled back the tabs on the diaper, and-

Well, that was a mistake. She wasn't done, not by a long shot. Every time I thought I'd cleaned her up, she let loose another squirt. It got on her feet. It got halfway up her back. It got on her elbow. It got on my elbow. And finally, just when I was certain she couldn't have any more shit in her-

She peed all over the changing table, soaking two table pads and her onesie.

I think she weighs about a pound less, now.

And I... I have been fully baptised as a parent. Hallelujah.