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Sam Davidson has been a dad for 23 days. He has a blog. He rewrites this bio line each Friday.

I’m not sure about your kids, but mine came with no instruction manual. No CD-ROM (Do they still even make those?), no dictionary, no electronic translator, and no iPhone app. This means I’m forced to play the likes of Horatio Caine on my own (my wife hates that guy, by the way).

Now that I’m nearly past waking up every 20 minutes to make sure she’s still breathing, I really only stir when I hear a grunt, gurgle, or giggle coming from the crib in the corner of our room. I don’t think she’s trying to dictate poetry or the next great novel to me, but at the very least I hope she’s not trying to tell me that she’s choking. And so I’m forced to deduce what she’s saying while she tries to wiggle free from her swaddle.

Is her diaper on too tight? Is her onesie in a bunch? Is it too hot in here? Too cold? Does she want to be held? Is she ready to move out and get her own place? Does she hate me yet?

And, then, with a final, animal-like grunt accompanied by a push, I realize the point of her seemingly endless effort: she now needs a new diaper.

When she was barely a week old, these events were cute. Everything was in working order and part of being a parent is learning how to change a diaper. To make it slightly more stimulating and bearable for me, I pretended I was a crew chief and this baby needed a new set of diapers so she could be back in top shape in under a minute. But now that she’s been eating well and growing, it’s easy to tell when she needs a pit stop.

My skills as a CSI don’t have to be as astute. Anyone with half a nostril within a 300-yard radius of our house knows what’s needed. Along with stocking up on wipes and diapers, I also carry with me lavender spray (which I order from Alice). My daughter can clear a room in seconds. The spray only needs a few more to put things back in order.

When I use it, it reminds my wife of being in labor. She labored at home for a few hours with the help of a doula. In order to make things more comfortable – both at our house and at the hospital – our doula sprayed lavender. Now when I do it – a few times a day now that my child is back above her birth weight – my wife checks to see if her water broke again.

It didn’t, thank God. If you double the kids, you double the cuteness. But you also double the diapers. Our noses aren’t ready for that yet. As Lt. Caine would say, “Something…smells out of place.” (Put on sunglasses, cue The Who.)

This is a guest post by Sam Davidson, who is a brand new dad and will be posting here each Friday. He also tries his best to say things that matter at his blog and at Cool People Care.

I assumed that once I had a child, my living room, kitchen, and bathroom would look like Graco threw up everywhere. Apparently to have a baby in America today, you need at least two sets of the venerable triumvirate known as the swing, the bouncer, and the play pen. Mix those in with the few dozen stuffed animals that well-meaning friends give you and suddenly you can’t find your copy of The Dark Knight because a green elephant is hiding it beneath his paws that make rattle noises.

All that I was ready for. What was unexpected was the amount of hand cleaning products I now have in every room in the house.

In the kitchen I have hand soap, hand sanitizer, and hand wipes. Ditto for each bathroom downstairs. Upstairs, where the baby currently sleeps, are three more bottles of hand sanitizer (two in the bedroom and one in the bathroom), another bottle of soap, and a canister of wipes.

Each promises to kill 99.99% of all germs. So what about the 0.01% that will kill my baby?

Before having a child, I was sterotypically male when it came to cleanliness. A shirt could double as a napkin if it was going into the hamper later. No one really looked at the back of toilets (or behind them), so I never cleaned there. And what’s a few crumbs on the floor when you can wear slippers?

But now that my daughter has been home for two weeks, I find myself washing my hands before holding her, after changing her, and every time I wonder, “When was the last time I washed my hands?” It’s not quite OCD, but I at least think Adrian Monk would approve.

Lots of things symbolize new life: birth announcements, diapers, receiving blankets, and stuffed toys. As for me, I’ll remember this period not for its technologically advanced baby entertainment systems, but for its germ fighting gels and lotions. I guess if you’re knee-deep in poop, at least you can be up to your elbows in Purell.

Another unexpected upside: my skin is so soft!