This will be brief because it is so gross and so scaring to my psyche.

Want to know how to make a dirty bomb? Take your child's diaper off just after you think they finished pooping. Apparently they can make it explode like a bomb, rather than just a drizzle. All over you.

The more you know. *Cue TMYK theme song*

I'm gonna go scrub my skin raw now.

Things I know about John Elway, The Greatest QB of all TIME:

1. He's extremely fast.
2. He's extremely tricky. Flea Flicker anyone?
3. He's awesome with the pump fake.
4. He's got laser perfect aim.
5. He has two superbowl rings.

So last night, at 3 am I'm all groggy, complacent and feeding Charlie when I discover a stinky diaper. I decided to change it. Then the following happened.

1. I place the new diaper under the old one and clean him off.
2. As I move the old diaper out of the way, he poops again. I rush to make sure there's no blast radius by blocking with the new diaper.
3. I reach for new diaper #2 while suddenly coming to the realization that I have not covered his junk. I reach for a pee pee teepee.
4. I turn back around and he's managed to use his laser perfect aim to pee in his own ear, and all over his pajamas. He got me with the pump fake.
5. I give him a championship ring for fastest pee-er ever.

I'm even more resolved to beat this kid at his game, but you win this time Charlie, you win this time. By the way, when you get older, don't try that on the football field. It could end badly.

Traveling to Netroots Nation this year was a ton of fun and as always an educational experience. I'm sad to see that Gina is retiring as director, but hopefully there will be much fun next year in Pittsburgh. Things I learned at the conference:

• Being away from my kid and wife now officially is a bowl of suck.
• Joe Trippi can look un-disheveled.
• I miss my kid.
• Old friends are good to catch up with.
• I perpetually wonder if I'm missing something cool that my kid did every minute I'm away from him.
• A lot more people than just my immediately family read this blog. I had no idea that many people were interested in poop.
• I can not handle booze like I used to.
• I can beat the smartest lawyer ever at poker.
• I often miss my wife.
• The Alamo Drafthouse is everything I hoped it would be and more.
• I like not being peed on.
• I was really excited to get 5 full nights of sleep. Too bad I still only got 1.
• I can not handle booze like I used to.
• Sometimes things I think will be exciting are in fact incredibly boring.
• Sometimes things I think will be boring are in fact incredibly exciting.
• Tearing up after watching a video of my kid yawning does not make me lame...I think.
• Sometimes, there can be such a thing as too many parties.
• I really can not handle booze like I used to.
• Austin is a awesome place.
• If you sponsor an event, the chance of you hearing your company get a shout out works in direct correlation with your inability to hold you bladder. The more you leave an event to pee, the more they will say your name without you there. If you stay in the room they will conversely refrain from mentioning you at all.
• Charlie and Heather can apparently function without me. That's disconcerting as everything is supposed to be about me.
• Everybody wants an Advoshirt.
• Being away from my kid and wife now officially is a factory of suck.

Can't wait till next year.

The Diaper Genie is not a magical man in a lamp that will grant you 3 baby poo wishes. No, instead the diaper genie is a poorly made plastic craptastic trash can of doom that will make your life a living hell or awesome depending on its mood, and it will rob you and take your wallet after it ransacks your nursery and dumps baby diapers all over the floor.

All of our parental friends sung the praises of the diaper genie as a life saver, as it seals all the diaper smells into a hermetically sealed sausage of plastic. We took their advice, but we took it to the next level and got the Diaper Genie II, supposedly the next evolution in the fight against the robots for the future.... er wait, in the diaper smell protection racket.

After about a week with the diaper genie, things were going smoothly. The DG and I had an understanding. Charlie would crap his pants, and I would take said pants and shove them into DG. DG would then protect us from Charlie's sulfuric discharges. I would then empty DG of the diaper sausage it had created and prep it for another round. However, newer isn't always better.

In the middle of the second week, apparently I angered DG and it broke on me, trapping a bunch of diapers above the seal, and a bunch below. I looked under the hood, and realized I had no idea how to put the contraption back together. A spring had popped off and some plastic pieces that I had no idea how to rearrange were laying on the inside. After a frantic search for the original instruction on using it, I found a picture that explained how it was put together. After an hour or two of futzing, I had apparently appeased the DG, as it went back to working as it was supposed to. All the extra diapers were stuffed into the top of a sausage wrap and my need for a hazmat suit was temporarily sated.

Cut to week 3. It broke again. And this time I noticed something fun. A little tiny plastic knob that was sealed onto the base of the genie had snapped off, causing it to perpetually break after 2 days of use. Rage filled my soul as I realized I was going to be trapped in a endless loop of sausge repair and toxic fumes, defeating the very purpose of the DP. I was determined to poor all my anger into the fine customer service representatives at playtex, the makers of the diaper genie. After finding no warranty information online, I assumed the worst about playtex. I predicted a phone call where I was put on hold for 30 minutes, and then they would decline my request for a replacement genie.

So I called them, enraged. After pressing a billion numbers to find a live person, I was put on hold. I knew it. They were gonna screw me. 18 minutes later, I finally got ahold of one of their evil service representatives. We'll call her Sharon. Sharon was appallingly nice, frustratingly understanding, and was unnervingly responsive to my issue. I had no way to channel my rage into her. She disarmed me, and offered to send a replacement genie immediately upon my sending in the old one with the free shipping label they send to me, and assured me that my experience was not the normal diaper genie experience. Additionally, she's sending along some coupons for DG sausage liners for my troubles

So maybe the diaper genie can still be magic. I'll keep you posted. In the interim, pray Charlie doesn't poop much.

So I realize that on this blog I will become the thing that so many people are wary of. I will eventually start boring people to tears with play by plays of every little thing Charlie does, ranging from fascinating essays about his poop, to dissertations on how when his little hands grab on to things it's clear that he's a supergenius (its obvious, you guys, he clearly is showing signs of advancement far beyond his age because he managed to pull his pacifier out of his mouth with his hand. He'll be using tools very soon.)

So acknowledging that ahead of time, I want you to know, I understand, that I am becoming boring parent guy. I have no control over it. It's a genetic thing that happens when you pro-create. I'm gonna start a separate blog about politics and other stuff, and leave all the boring family stuff on here, so the two never have to intersect.

In the interim, allow me to regale with you a nightmare horror story. About poop. Just because I can. (Charlie is gonna hate me later, but whatever.)

After Charlie's meconium phase he stopped pooping at all. We went 96 hours of nothing but pee. In exchange for no poop, we were given the gift from Satan himself, Sulfuric death farts that could kill all animal and plant life within a 10 mile radius. These things were more than toxic. They could put you on the floor. So after 96 hours of this we were starting to get nervous that Charlie would be that embarrassing smelly kid at school who all the other children shunned for fear he might make them smell like sulfur too. Finally after 4 days of nothing, he crapped all over himself. It was a glorious and victorious night, simultaneously thrilling, and disgusting. It's an amazing moment when you come to the realization that you are getting excited about poop. You become conflicted with feelings of relief that your kid can poop, and horror, that you get excited by such things.

The next night, I heard him pooping, and being the proactive guy I am, I grabbed him out of his crib before he started crying. I popped him onto the changing table, checked out his diaper, and sure enough, there was a nice big watery poop all over his little diaper. I proceeded through the motions of changing him, wiping him down, grabbing the replacement, when to my horror, the apocalypse came forth, because God apparently hates me.

Ever go to a fancy party and see a chocolate fountain? Now imagine that but with runny baby poo. Endless baby poo. I tried wiping the second round, but it just kept coming. Nothing would stop it. I screamed for backup. By the time Heather got up there I was on wetwipe #5 and frantically trying to stop the madness. 6 wetwipes and 2 diapers later, things were back under control. I now have Post Tramatic Stress Disorder, but that's a small price to pay in exchange for my kid being socially acceptable when he grows up.

The farts have gone. And now I bore my friends with poo play by play. Good times.

Charlie is mad, originally uploaded by Advodude.

We've made it home in one peace, and Charlie's grandparents gave us a 0 birthday BD cake and some champaign to celebrate the occasion. The pediatrician gave him a clean bill of health (other than the jaundice that is clearing up) and Heather seems better as well. I've learned alot in these first 72 hours, and I thought it might be good to share them with you.