For all the stress and exhaustion newborns can sometimes cause, they sure do make up for it with their adorableness. Even in their incredible moments of grossness (hello, diaper explosions), there's never a dull moment, and most of the time, they leave parents doubled over in laughter. Just ask Ashley Cobert, who was recently feeding her newborn when something so unexpected happened that it's literally had the internet cry-laughing for over a week.
Cobert tells CafeMom that it was a pretty typical evening when the whole thing went down.
"I was nursing the baby and my husband Dave was cooking dinner," she says. But she made one newbie parenting error: She forgot to throw a burp rag over her shoulder to catch her baby's inevitable spit-up.
Moments later, just like clockwork, it happened: She got puked on.
It wasn't really a surprise, says Cobert. After all, her 10-week-old daughter, Meredith, spits up every time she eats.
But what was surprising was the particular shape the spit-up seemed to form on the front of her shirt.
It looked … oddly familiar. Slightly inappropriate, even.
Staring down to get a better look, Cobert says she immediately burst into hysterics.
And try as she might, she could not. Stop. Laughing.
"It couldn't have been more perfect if I tried," she says now.
The spit-up had somehow taken the form of a certain part of the male anatomy -- in ALL its glory.
It cascaded down her shirt and dried in what can only be described as a work of pure artistry, and left Cobert and her husband in a fit of laughter.
OBVIOUSLY, they had to snap a photo. And although Cobert was only going to share it within her small circle of friends and family at first, she says the humor of it all got the better of her.
First, she posted the pics in a few private mom groups, but after much fanfare, she was urged to post them publicly. So on September 11, she did — and MAN are the people of Facebook grateful.
It has since been shared more than 38,000 times and (no surprise) has brought sheer delight to everyone who's seen it.
"Her very first artwork," wrote one person. "Better not display that one on the fridge though."
"OMG, I can't stop laughing!" wrote another.
The Iowa mom has found the fame of little Meredith's spit-up to be pretty comical, though she admits that in some ways, she isn't surprised.
"Everyone loves a good penis joke!" she says. (Oh, how true that is.)
"The idea that SO MANY people have seen it definitely feeds into my anxiety," she continues, adding that postpartum anxiety is "no joke." Still, "the thought that it's made a LOT of people laugh has helped me get through it. And a lot of those people are moms, just trying to get through the grind and keep their tiny humans happy, just like me. We need a good laugh sometimes!"
Even though some internet "sleuthers" cried conspiracy and accused the mom of Photoshopping the whole thing, she says she hasn't let their negative comments get to her. Especially when it comes to the people who acted more offended than amused by the whole thing
"[One woman said] I'm a MOTHER now and I should act like it," Cobert recalls, "and that my kid will see this someday and be embarrassed of me."
Oof.
To that woman, though, Cobert has only one thing to say: "Whatever, lady, sorry I forgot to turn in my sense of humor when I had kids!"
(I'm pretty sure the rest of us are glad she kept it.)
