Ode to a Diaper Genie

This is a post about poop. No, I’m not a 9-year-old boy who finds all things poopy side-splittingly funny. (Nor am I a 62-year-old man—this trait apparently does not die out as boys grow up, as Grandpa Dale has taught us.) No, I am a mother. Dealing with poop comprises a shockingly large, unglamorous portion of my day. There’s an episode of “Sex and the City” in which the four girls attend a baby shower out in the ‘burbs—and of course they’re way too cool, too sophisticated for it. In one scene Miranda enters the room with a totally disbelieving look on her face. “I just had a conversation with a woman with an MBA who could talk about nothing but her Diaper Genie,” she says. (For those who don’t know, a Diaper Genie is a trash can for dirty diapers.) The first time I saw this scene I thought that line was hilarious, not to mention spot on. I mean, how silly—a woman with so much knowledge reducing her conversation down to the subject of poop receptacles. When I have kids, I’ll never be like that! I swore. Well, add that to the growing list of debunked “I’ll Nevers,” because I ADORE the Diaper Genie. Every day I wonder if Charlotte is normal—do babies really poop this much? Her poops typically require an entire outfit change, and quite often I need one as well. There was even a recent incident involving our desk chair, which will never be the same again. So with all this poo flying around, I can’t help but be grateful to and, quite frankly, in awe of the Diaper Genie. That magic can swallows up the poopiest messes and then seals them away, never to stink the air around me again. I love it. I cannot live without it. And so I give you “Ode to a Diaper Genie.”

Ode to a Diaper Genie Hour after hour, I pop open your dear lid, And drop inside a diaper full of something Charlotte did. A greater can there never was and never will there be, You take each gift she gives you, even if it’s only pee. As though it never happened, you take away the poo, And so, dear Genie, all I say is this: I love you.