I’m a girl with girl parts that I’ve had for 35 years and am very familiar with their operation and maintenance. When I had my baby boy 8 years ago, he came with a whole new set of parts – externally hanging ones. I could not relate to these parts, but quickly became a diaper-changer extraordinaire – the baby penis and the balls were easy to clean.

Fast forward to 7 weeks ago when my baby girl was born. One of the pediatricians in the hospital came in to give her an exam and off came the diaper and with it, the girl diapering lesson.

“Make sure you clean her vagina – inside the folds,” she instructed. “Pull it apart and get it thoroughly clean,” she went on. Then she not-so-gingerly spread my baby’s delicate parts and checked them out.

Oh goodness me. This felt very invasive. She made mention that we don’t have to get rid of “all the lubrication” – some was normal.

But how would I know how much was normal? I’m a perfectionist and would lean on the side of scrubbing said-body-part clean. After baby girl’s first poop, it became apparent that the spreading part of the diaper change was imperative to thorough cleaning. Whereas a boys parts are ‘what you see is what you get,’ a girl’s parts are in line with a girl’s character – always hiding something inside and you really have to dig deep to clean the shit out.

Another difference that I never expected was the fountain pee. Baby boys have a bad reputation for peeing the minute the diaper comes off – a yellow streaming fountain that usually saturates diaper changer. Girls, however, with their folded parts, don’t come with this assumption. My baby girl has proven to me – over and over now – how wrong it was to presume there would be no female pee fountain. In fact, she has, in her 7 short weeks, given me more squirting yellow displays than my boy ever did.

I love that she’s bold like that. Just wait until I impose and pass along onto her my public restroom shtick.