Being a parent to small children includes many encounters with bodily fluids, usually not your own.

Before my son was born, I was dreading getting peed on. The way it’s talked about, I expected it to be a daily thing. In fact, this was the reason I wanted a girl first. That wasn’t such a good call. My daughter wasted little time. I’ll never forget the doctor holding her up to show me, and then exclaiming “she peeing on me!” Then she shot poop at me when she was only 12 days old. Seems she missed the memo that only boys were supposed to make messes on mommy.

On the other hand, at 3 months I can count the number of times my little boy has peed on me on one hand. And here’s the best part: the first time was when he was two weeks. He did, however, make target practice of the warmer at the hospital, shooting it within minutes of his birth. This boy’s got range, he’s just considerate when it comes to spraying his mom.

Back to the poop. Over the course of your child’s first years, you will change hundreds, if not thousands, of diapers, and some of it is going to get on your hand. There’s no way around it. Just clean up, scrub good and get yourself a treat.

Then there are sneezes. It’s bad enough having that cute little face blow; sometimes you can actually see the germs fly all over. Then you get your darling waddling over to show you something, the pause, and then, to your utter horror, they release that sucker all over you, possibly into your mouth (I didn’t sign up for THIS!)

If you’ve got a new baby, we can’t forget the spit up. You’ve pretty much got two options: A) smell like baby spit and milk all day, every day or B) keep one foot in the shower, and watch that laundry pile up. Everyone says your laundry increases with a baby; they just don’t tell you that half of it is your own, from all the fluids you get to be a mop for.

On the bright side, there is one fluid of babies you don’t get to clean up: blood. Babies don’t have much opportunity to bleed, thankfully. If your baby bleeds regularly, you might be doing something wrong. But don’t worry, you’ll likely get to clean up your own, or your two-year olds. “I said NO jumping on the couch.”