Adelyn's umbilical cord stump fell off yesterday. And thank god. That thing was disgusting.

It was hanging by a thread for days, and each time we changed her diaper I felt like I was torturing her, accidentally nudging that black, icky scab hanging off her stomach.

Right after a diaper change yesterday, I looked down and realized it was gone. I frantically searched the floor--my dogs were roaming around and no telling what they would do with it if they found it first--and there it was, finally, inside her diaper.

I put it in on the kitchen counter for a while (which in retrospect sounds like a disgusting choice), trying to decide what to do with it. Toss it? Keep it? I'm not much of a pack-rat, but Jason sometimes is. But we hated that thing. So I texted him to be considerate, to share the good news and ask his opinion about the scab's future.

"Mind if I toss it?" I asked.

Knowing Jason's usual history I'd assume it would have wound up stuffed in a drawer somewhere. Inside a box. Inside of another box. Stuffed into a Kroger bag filled with receipts. The man throws nothing away.

But he wrote back, "Get that thing out of here!"

So into the trash can it went, landing on top of a pile of dirty diapers and soaked-through breast pads.

And it fell off just in time, because today, Adelyn had her first explosive poop. (You're not supposed to give a newborn a bath until that wretched thing is gone.) She hadn't pooped since last night before bed, and I'd spent the day googling "newborn poop" and "how to make my newborn go to the bathroom." You know, over-reacting and assuming the worst.

Just about an hour ago I noticed her back was soaking wet. She had pooped out 24 hours worth of waste in one fell swoop--up her back, leaking down to her toes, puddled into her newly-naked belly button. It was too big of a job for mere wet wipes to handle.

She took her first bath like a champ. No crying. In fact, she fell asleep midway through.

Sarah Caitlin blogs at Nine Months to Life.