Someday, I hope to inspire my daughter to practice good living by treating people kindly, using proper grammar, eating lots of vegetables and rooting for the New York Yankees.

So far, however, it’s clear that one of the only things I inspire her to do currently is poop.

I came to this conclusion after some (not-so) scientific research conducted over the course of this past week. The highlights of this research:

• Between Sunday of last week and yesterday, L soiled a grand total of 81 Huggies.
• I changed 42 of them; Powergirl changed 39.
• Of the diapers in my batch, 26 (61.9 percent) were filled with poop, and 16 (38.1 percent) with pee.
• Of the diapers changed by Powergirl, only 9 (23.1 percent) were filled with poop, while the remaining 30 (76.9 percent) were filled with pee.

Presented another way, my research indicates that roughly six out of every ten diapers on my watch had poop, while for Powergirl the stats were only two out of every ten.

Why does L seem to poop more around me? I’ve got some (absurd and probably self-important) ideas:

• She feels relaxed around me, so it is easier for her to, um, let go.
• She thinks her mother would rather clean pee (which Powergirl would).
• She knows, inherently, that I am neurotic man, and is trying to break me of this sickness before my neuroses become a real problem (like, before she hits puberty).
• She likes the song I sing when I wipe her tiny tush (it involves lyrics such as “Clean your little boo-tee” and “Wipe that poop!”), and has learned that I’ll sing it more when she produces.

Of course the explanation could be completely unscientific as well. Perhaps I just watch her during her predominant “poop” times—early morning, mid afternoon. Perhaps the way I hold her and occasionally bounce her makes it easier for her to get the job done.

Maybe it’s just the luck of the draw, and over the course of, say, a full month or a full year, L’s poop/pee splits will even out like the odds in a game of single-deck blackjack.

Whatever the reason, I gladly accept my role as L’s poop muse. Most of we men think and talk quite a bit about poop, so for me the situation is perfectly comfortable. To paraphrase a line from “Field of Dreams,” when she makes it, I will clean. I just wonder how long the current trend will last.