“How many diapers have you ever changed, Mom?” Cowgirl asked as she watched me stick down the last tab of Sonshine’s diaper.

That’s my girl. I love stats, dates… anything to do with numbers. I’m pleased to see Cowgirl taking an interest in stats – and diapers. We quickly set to the task of finding an answer.

We have born seven children so far, and most have been potty trained sometime between their second and third birthdays, so we used a ballpark average of 30 months. While I don’t typically count diapers, the experts say babies typically go through 6 to 8 a day, so we just took seven as our average.

• 7 diapers a day times 7 days a week equals 49 a week. We rounded it to 50 for simplicity.
• 50 diapers a week times 4 weeks a month is 200.
• 200 diapers a month times 30 months is 6000 diaper changes through the life of one child.
• 6000 diapers per child times 7 children is 42,000 diapers.
  

WOW.

REALLY? That just sounds crazy high to me.

What about poopy diapers? Cowgirl wanted to know.

Hmmm. Everybody had at least one or two a day, sometimes more. Sometimes MUCH more. We’ll be conservative and start with one.

• One diaper a day times 365 days is 365 a year.
• 365 times 2 1/2 is 912 over the course of 30 months.
• 912 times 7 children is 6384.
• For two diapers a day, double it: 12,768.
• Thus, we’ve changed somewhere between 6000 and 13000 poopy diapers.

Curiosity overtook me, and my mind moved on to more of life’s burning questions.

How long have I been pregnant?

• 9 months times 7 children equals 63 months.
• Add in the 7 1/2 months of my current pregnancy
• That comes to 70 months (5.8 years) of pregnancy. (I had to edit this. I somehow miscalculated it to be 9 1/2 years the first time. How embarrassing for a stats enthusiast.)

How much weight have I gained?

So far this pregnancy, I’ve gained 30 pounds. (Gasp, shock!) I know. Perhaps you are one of those women who gains 10 or 15 pounds. I’ve always envied women like you. Connie at Smockity Frocks recently compared herself in pregnancy to “a potato with feet.” While I found that hard to believe for her, I completely identified with the analogy. The least I ever gained in an entire pregnancy was 30 pounds and the most was 50. The average was 40, so we’ll use that.

• 40 pounds per pregnancy times 8 pregnancies. That’s 320 pounds of weight gain!

How much weight have I lost?

That one is harder to gauge since I’m still expecting now, but prior to this eighth pregnancy, I weighed exactly 15 pounds more than I was prior to my first pregnancy. That averages 2.14 pounds per baby, and I’m rather content with that. Besides, some extra weight comes naturally with getting older, right? Just nod your head. Thanks.

Some of our other big family stats:

• How much laundry do we do? We currently wash 2 or 3 loads a day, five days a week. 2.5 x 5 is 12.5 loads a week, or 650 loads of laundry a year. I’m glad the children know how to help!
• Last year, Writer determined that we spent about $700 on milk a year. Our milk consumption has increased somewhat since then (and so have milk prices), so that number is surely a bit higher by now.
• Our family sheds 388 – 518 million skin cells every day!

I wonder…

How much toilet paper do we go through in a year?

How many loaves of bread?

How much shampoo?

But I’m out of time. Perhaps the kids can take those burning questions and run with them.

Handyman? Writer? Anyone?

Bueller?