There’s a dark little secret about new babies that most non-parents don’t know about: meconium. Meconium is a black tarry substance that is what newborns produce as part of their poo. Pardon the word poo, but I don’t know what else to call it.

Changing a meconium diaper is a real hassle. The stuff really is like tar and requires a lot of work to get off a baby’s backside.

C’s first diaper change occurred in the hospital (of course). J and I discussed it and tried what we thought would be a good approach. I held both his ankles up with one hand, keeping his backside off the bed. J took the diaper off, and we worked together to get the meconium off. We got it all with a minimum of crying, and were congratulating ourselves when I put his feet back down, lowering him into his clean diaper.

That’s when we noticed that his face was dripping wet.

I’d been holding his ankles up so high that when he’d peed, it had gone straight on to his face.

This would be what you might call a "bad beginning". On the plus side, however, we had a measuring stick by which to compare all subsequent failures: "You did what? Well, at least you didn’t make him pee in his own face."