Before we got pregnant, we got a dog. Or, well, our dog "got" us but that's a different story. I will say that having a dog really was like a tiny baby step towards parenthood.
One of the ways that our pupperino really prepared me for parenthood was how suddenly, I cared a lot more about poop. Specifically my dog's poop. I'd had dogs before growing up, but Westley is my first dog. And he's a tad high maintenance. Once we got Westley, suddenly we cleaning up a lot more piss than we had previously had to (poor Westley had a habit of peeing when he was nervous - and in the early days he was nervous A LOT). Then we realized he'd eat almost anything. So my walks became focused on not only making sure that he pooped, but then inspecting the poop to ensure that whatever he'd digested before we'd caught him had passed through.
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| Actual Pic of my Doggo Pooping this weekend |
Now I realize that this was just a precursor for parenthood. I mean, when I was pregnant I knew that diary diapers and blowouts were in my future. What I didn't know what how dirty diapers would suddenly become a codex that would help me decipher things about my diet and ultimately, my bear cub's diet. This was something I hadn't really been prepared for.
Fun fact: some infants can't tolerate dairy OR soy. It's not so much an allergy, just that their little guts aren't ready to digest the milk and soy proteins. How do you know if you're one of the lucky ones whose baby can't digest it? Well, for the really sensitive babies there is blood in the diaper. For others, it's a shit ton of mucus. Seriously, it looks like a giant blew his nose in your baby's diaper. It's gross.
Another fun fact: Dairy and soy are in ALMOST EVERYTHING.
Well, you can google baby poop pictures on the internet and read descriptions, but for me that didn't REALLY help. I mean, baby bear cub's diapers had ALWAYS had mucus so I thought it was normal. Spoiler alert: It wasn't.
After several weeks, I broke down and cut out dairy. And then several weeks later, I broke down and cut out soy. VOILA! We now have normal poop.
I never have been more excited about poop in my life. And I really feel like that's a really great summary of parenthood. His normal poops mean I'M DOING IT RIGHT. It means that all the headache that comes with cutting out SOY and DAIRY has been worth it. My life is a bit less awesome now in some ways (because I'm sorry but queso dip is life), but it is 100% worth it because it's made my son's life measurably better. At this point, each poopy diaper is confirmation that I'm kicking ass at being a Mama Bear to my little cub. Each dirty diaper is confirmation that depriving myself of something as insignificant as dairy is worth it. When I'm out and debating about ordering that cheese burger because come on, I REALLY want a cheese burger, I think of those poopy diapers and my son's grin. Then it's pretty damn easy to just get the burger without cheese.
If you're out there and struggling with cutting out dairy, leave a comment below. Or maybe you are on the other side of that journey and have some words of wisdom (and recipes) you feel like sharing with the rest of us. Or maybe you have no experience with this struggle either and your baby's diapers told a different story. Whatever the case, leave a comment below.
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