Setting up

I've never raised a child, even though I'm 50-ish. Ok, 50 even. Now my husband and I suddenly have three children in a small house. In the days following our acquiring the kids, we brought bedding and furniture over from the mom's now-abandoned house. We got clothing by the bagful, not even knowing what most of it was. I broke open and sorted through several big black trash bags of clothes, much of which just went into the trash. I pulled out baby clothes that no longer fit Lexi and tried taking them to the local consignment shop. No luck...they wouldn't take any of it. Too stained. That was embarrassing.

We spent days setting things up so everyone has some space of their own. We're not done yet...the two teenagers are sharing a room. Fortunately they grew up together and are practically sisters.

We bought more bedding, more clothing, lots of different foodstuffs that we would normally avoid like the plague (macaroni and cheese, white bread, microwave popcorn, etc.). I learned how to change a child's diaper, clean massive amounts of poop off the child, and put on a fresh pullup. We are learning about daycare (and how expensive it is...almost $800/month!) None of this was in the budget, by the way.

Question for those who are more familiar with children: how does a being so small generate such a giant amount of poop?? It's staggering sometimes. It's like there's an alien invasion--a very smelly one.