Morphing into Mama

It's A Syndrome

I had a friend who while in medical school was constantly freaking out about his every little ache and pain.  One day it was, "I think I have brain fever."  The next day it was, "I'm afraid I might have cancer."  But the most ridiculous one was, "I was reading about cervical pain last night, and I swear to GOD I've experienced it." 

No, my friend was not an idiot.  He was merely suffering from medical student's syndrome, otherwise known as having TMI.  Having TMI is common among those who not only study medicine but psychology as well.  I admit to sitting in psychopathology class and breaking out into a sweat more than once because I was convinced I'd exhibited some behaviors of some mental disorder (oh, please, haven't we all?? and, no, I'm not telling which ones).  After self-diagnosing, I'd then start rehearsing how to break the news to my husband and children.  Eventually, after being indefinitely hospitalized in my mind's eye, I'd remember I have TMI and begin the process of talking myself down from the ledge.

What's worse, however, is when you start applying TMI to your own children.  Suddenly, every slightly abnormal (for them, anyway) behavior begins triggering thoughts of disorders requiring years of treatment.  Next thing you know you're logging this "strange" behavior and describing it in vivid detail to your husband every night until the kid finally stops doing it and you realize it was nothing, but your husband already knew this so he just rolled his eyes behind his New Yorker and said "uh-huh" over and over again.  See, when you apply TMI to the children, it's a little more difficult to talk yourself down from the ledge.

Thus, the important thing to remember when you have TMI (besides the fact that you have it) is to NOT let your children know that you are projecting your own irrational neuroses onto them.  However, at times, no matter how cognizant of this you are, you're bound to fuck it up.  Like I did.

The other night, as I went in to sing Bah-bie her bedtime song, I found her in her crib banging her little fist against her forehead. 

"Bah-bie, we don't hit ourselves," I said to her quietly, catching her arm before she could knock herself upside the head again.

"Because it's a syndrome?" she responded with a sly smile.

Obviously, I failed to keep this information to myself when I first caught her doing this two months ago.  Now she has TMI.

Dedication

"Hi, MiM, this is Bah-bie's teacher."

"Oh, hi, Bah-bie's teacher."

"I'm calling because your husband just picked up the kids, and I forgot to tell him that Bah-bie had a big poop in the potty today."

"She did?  Oh, that's great news!  Her belly has been distended for the past couple of days, and I've been telling her to push out that poop, but she'd just say, 'No! I donno want to!'  She must feel so relieved."

"Oh, I should think so.  That was a really big poop."

"Really?  That is so great!  Did you praise her?"

"Yeah, I praised her.  She seemed pretty pleased with herself.  And she should have been because that was the biggest poop I've ever seen."

"Really?  How big was it?"

"It was bigger than her."

"Bigger than her?"

"Yup.  It started at the very bottom of the toilet bowl, went straight to the top, and then curved around."

"Wow!  That does sound big!"

"Yup.  It was so big, I took a picture of it."

"You did?"

"Oh, yeah.  I'll show it to you tomorrow when you drop her off."

"That is so awesome!  You so made my night!"

A Word From the (Belated) Birthday Girl

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Far From Gullible

Last week, I had a session with a father and his teenage daughter.  At one point, the father was complaining how his daughter questions him all the time.  When the father tells her to do something or not do something, the daughter responds with questions rather than just doing what she was told.  When I asked the daughter what her perspective was, she said she just wanted to ensure she had all the information so she could assess for herself whether or not she should do it.  The father saw this as defiance, but she saw it as thinking for herself.

I thought about that session the other night, after I put Bah-bie to bed.

"Honey, Dada's not home.  Dada's on an airplane.  You will see him in a few days.  Understand?"

"Yesh!"

"Okay, so you need to lie down and go to sleep.  It's time for night-night."

"Night-night.  Bye-bye."

"Night-night, Honey."

I closed the door and went downstairs to call Husband.  His plane had just landed, and we chatted while he waited for his luggage.

"I thought you were going to take your truck to the airport."

"I was.  But when I went to leave, it wouldn't start, so I had to strap my suitcase to my motorcycle."

"Ohhh --"

"OWSIDE!  OWSIDE!" I hear Bah-bie screaming from her crib.

"Great.  Bah-bie's screaming now.  She's probably upset because she didn't get to see you.  I'll call you back.  I have to go talk to her."

"Why don't you take the phone upstairs, and I'll talk to her."

I went into Bah-bie's room.  She was standing, facing the door, with her arm pointing behind her towards the window overlooking the street.

"Bah-bie, Dada is not here, but he's on the phone.  Do you want to talk to him?"

"Yesh!"

I held the phone to her ear.  She started talking immediately.

"Iagiah aghae yhgh tuck owside.  Iagiah aghae yhgh tuck ouwside."

That's when I realized she didn't believe me when I told her Dada wasn't home.  How he could be gone when his truck is parked right outside? 

She was quiet for a moment as she listened to Dada.

"Yesh!" she said.  Then she waved at the phone and said, "Bye-bye."

I kissed her one more time and shut the door. 

I went back downstairs and talked to Husband.

"What did you say to her?"

"Well, I could tell she thought I should be home because my truck is parked outside.  So I told her I was far away, and I would see her in a few days.  Then I told her to stop screaming and go to sleep."

"What did she say 'yesh' to?"

"I asked her if she was going to go to sleep."

"Well, she must be asleep because she's quiet now!"

After we chatted for a few more minutes, I thought about the father and daughter I'd worked with last week.  Bah-bie's not even TWO years-old, and she's already questioning me, unwilling to take me at my word.  She needs all the information so she can sort things out in her own mind.  She's already thinking for herself, critically.  This made me feel so proud. 

And scared.

Busted

Yesterday, while in the kitchen, I heard a strange scuffle followed by incoherent frantic Tod-lar whispering coming from the family room. 

I stepped away from the dishwasher and stealthily walked through the back hallway.  When I arrived at the door, I silently surveyed the scene.  Nothing appeared to be too out of the ordinary.  The Legos were all over the floor.  The couch pillows were disheveled.  And both kids were standing in the middle of the room looking at me wide-eyed. 

Hmmm.

"Bah-bie?  Were you standing on the coffee table?"  A trick she likes performing, usually at the urging of her big brother. 

"Noooo," she replied, adamantly shaking her head. 

I looked at Tod-lar.  He smiled back at me but said nothing.

I went back to loading the dishwasher.

This morning, as I was showing Husband the pictures Tod-lar's been taking all week (an exhibition of the artist's work to follow shortly), we found this:

And this:

She was wearing that outfit yesterday.

I Think This May Have Backfired

Remember when I demonstrated how to calm the impatient In-fant (who is now "Bah-bie") with a little Patience?  Well, now whenever I tell her she needs to be "calm" or "patient," she responds with a "Yeah, yeah, yeah."  Only, it doesn't sound like the "yeah, yeah" from the song.  Instead it sounds like, "Yeah, whatever, Mom.  Blah, blah, blah." 

This is definitely not the response I was going for.  I may need to rethink this one.

We Got Poop

[Warning:  this is a really long post cause I gotta lotta shit to talk about.]

Since my last shitty post, Bah-bie's been unloading her innards twice, sometimes three times a day -- no finger (or unlit matches, or thermometer) up the bum required!  (However, even if I'd had to stick my finger up her bum, it would not have been a new parenting low for me since nothing beats the time Tod-lar managed to shoot poop in my face, hitting me square in my right eyeball.  For all you new parents out there, let my experience be a lesson to never, ever open a newborn's diaper until you've heard at least three loud squirts.) 

"So what worked?" you ask with bated breath.  No magic bullet.  Just a combination of things: blueberries, (which, it turns out, Bah-bie can inhale by the pintful), Raisin Bran (please remind me who suggested Raisin Bran!), prune juice, plums (she'll now allow Tod-lar to feed them to her under the plum tree, which has increased her consumption considerably since we don't have to wait for daddy to be home -- not to mention the absolute fucking cuteness), and something that I think has helped considerably and was recommended by my pediatrician, NONFAT MILK.  Given Bah-bie used to drink milk-based formula, she should be fine with dairy, but the fat in whole milk may have been making her constipated. 

The best part is that because the poop is flowing easier, she's down to whimpering from crying.  Progress for sure.  The pediatrician, though, claims that however long she's had this problem, it'll take her twice as long to get over the psychological association of poop=pain.  This means it could take her as long as ONE YEAR to fully get over this issue.  I, however, am optimistic it will be sooner (please keep her in your prayers -- they obviously worked).

But the poop saga doesn't stop here.  No siree.  Not one for being left out, Tod-lar decided it was time for him to have a poop issue as well.  Instead of constipation, however, he decided to liven things up a bit by using poop for revenge. 

When we last left our potty learning Tod-lar, he had finally decided to pee in the potty, but still insisted on pooping in a pull-up.  I was fine with this.  I know it usually takes a little more time to be poo-potty-trained than it does to be pee-potty-trained, so I was totally okay with him using a pull-up whenever he needed to poop.  For an entire month, whenever he felt the need to pinch one out, he'd take off his underwear and go to the cabinet to get a pull-up.  Then he'd stand in a corner, slightly hunched, bracing himself with his hands positioned just above his knees.  When he was done, he'd ask me to clean him up.  Clearly, the dude knows when it's about to start flowing.

But then he started having "accidents" at school.  Okay.  Accidents happen.  So we talked about it, and he agreed to get a pull-up or tell his teacher whenever he needed to poop.  But THEN, the other night, Tod-lar did the unspeakable: he pinched out a stealth poo in his underwear while eating dinner.  I saw no grimacing and heard no grunting -- NOTHING.  Then all of a sudden, I smelled it. 

"Bah-bie, did you poo poo?"

"Nooo," she said shaking her head.

"Bud, did you fart?"

"No.  I poo poo."

"You pooed?"

"Yeah."

He stood up and started climbing out of his shorts. 

"Let me see."

And there, in his Thomas the Train underwear, was a HUGE, nearly perfectly round ball of poo.  As I tried to ease the underwear off of him, the huge ball of poo slowly rolled out of his underwear onto my KITCHEN floor, landing with a thunderous PLOP!  It was like watching the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, only with a huge poo ball rather than a boulder. 

Bah-bie saw it, pointed and screamed, "YU-YEE, YU-YEE," and then began to cry. 

"Nobody move."

I grabbed a plastic grocery bag, picked up the ball of poo, tied the bag, and threw it out the back door.  Then I herded Tod-lar to the bathroom to hose him down.  After all the crying (mine) and screaming (theirs) stopped, I asked Tod-lar why he had pooped in his underwear. 

"Did you do it because I wouldn't make you chicken nuggets for dinner after I'd already made you pasta?"  Because I am not a fucking restaurant.

"No."

"Then why?"

"I wanted bread."

"So, it was because I wouldn't give you bread until you'd eaten your peas?"

"Yes."

"Uh-huh.  Well, first, if you're upset you need to talk to me about it rather than pooping in your underwear.  Say, 'I'm upset, Mama, because I want bread!'  Second, we're going to throw out all your pull-ups."

"What?!  NO!  WHY?!"

"Because you don't need them anymore.  If you're going to poop in your underwear, then you don't need pull-ups."

So we went around the house and collected every stash of pull-ups, went outside to the garbage can, and ceremoniously threw them all away.

The next morning, Tod-lar had to poop.

"You can either poop in the potty or do it in your underwear."

"I don't have to poop."

"Okay."

An hour later . . .

"I have to poop, Mama."

"Like I said, you can either do it in the potty or do it in your underwear."

He turned around with a little sigh, went to the bathroom, pulled down his pants, put the stool in front of the potty, climbed up, grunted, and that's when I heard the kids being dropped off at the pool.  It was music to my ears. 

He's been pooping in the potty ever since.

But here's the thing:  what if he'd decided to just poop in his underwear? 

No need to worry, my friends, for I had Plan B. 

When I pick him up for school, we usually go do some really fun activity, like ride the train at the park, or go to a local pool.  If he'd decided to poop in his underwear, we would have to stop doing those activities and stay home.  After all, it's too difficult to clean up poop in underwear, especially when we're out.  So, staying home would be a natural consequence of him choosing not to poop in the potty.  Believe me, people, I know that kid, and he'd get tired of that pretty quick.  It might have taken a week, but he would have gotten my point.

Don't mess with the mama bull, cause you'll get the horns.

Bwahahaha.

-----

(And a special thanks to all you delurkers out there who came out of hiding to offer advice on Bah-bie's crappy situation!  I just love delurkers!)

This Should Tell You How Hot It Is Here

Praying for Poop

When I switched Bah-bie over to cow's milk at one year, it made her constipated.  Really constipated.  It was awful.  Really awful. 

I talked to her pediatrician about it. 

"Yeah, that happens.  Just give her some fruit."

"She won't eat fruit." 

"Well, it'll get better as her system matures."

Really?  When will that be?  When she's fucking 18?

My sarcasm should clue you into the fact that this constipation issue is FAR from over, and I'm about at my wit's end -- which, frankly, should not be surprising since I'm a little short on wit. 

So, here are we are.  Six months later, and my little Bah-bie is afraid to do what every person on the planet has in common and must do: poop.  In fact, she is so afraid to poop, when she feels a dump coming on, she Frankensteins her way over to me, legs stiff as a board, arms outstretched, crying, "Mama!"  It's heartbreaking.  Positively heartbreaking.  But, believe it or not, it's actually better than what she used to do, which was throw herself face-down on the ground and squeeze her butt cheeks together to stop the flow of poop.  After doing some research, I realized this could actually stretch out her colon (not to mention make her even more constipated), so whenever she hit the floor, I'd pick her up, and put her into a squatting position with her back to my chest.  This would piss her off immensely, so I'd try to make her laugh by singing a little ditty I made up, "Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow" as I carried her around the house.  I thought she'd find humor in poop support sung to the tune of a Christmas song, but her response only reconfirmed how I'm a little short on wit.

I thought about switching her to soy milk, but when I tried giving her soy formula (yes, she was on formula since I only breastfed for about 5 1/2 months; get over it) that made her constipated.  I can't even contemplate giving her rice milk since rice is part of the BRAT diet.  So, instead, I limit her milk intake and give her prune juice.  I feed her bran muffins, peas, spinach, even beans (presoaked to limit the gassiness).  Recently, we even got her to eat plums from our tree.  Of course, she has to be lying in Daddy's lap as he feeds them to her underneath the actual plum tree (and to think I gave away all those "Diva" onesies because I didn't want to promote such behavior), but at least she's eating them.  All that, coupled with the laxatives she gets before bed has helped.  Why, just the other day she had such an explosive poop, I had to stick her in the tub and hose her down, clothes and all.

So, you see, I thought we were making progress.  I thought we were only working on helping Bah-bie to associate pooping with relief instead of associating it with pushing a watermelon out of her butt.  But that last explosive poo she had?  The one where Tod-lar stood by watching and mini-barfing as I hosed her down?  That was three days ago, and she hasn't pooped since.  In fact, she hasn't even shown any signs of trying (or not trying, as the case may be) to poop. 

A doctor friend of mine suggested I do what he does with his infant daughter when she's constipated: stick his finger up her butt. 

I think, instead, I'll just pray for poop.  Or maybe I'll bring her to the pediatrician's office so SHE can stick her finger up her butt. 

Until then, "Please, God, let it flow, let it flow, let it flow . . . "

Funny Girl

The other night, Bah-bie awoke at 1 a.m. with a 103 temperature.  I gave her some medicine and some water.  As she drank, I went into the bathroom to pour cold water over a washcloth.  When I returned to her room, she handed me the water cup and collapsed on her back.  I whispered some soothing words to her while pressing the washcloth against her forehead, cheeks, and neck.  She closed her eyes and a look of relaxing relief came over her face.  As I watched her soak up the coolness, my chest ached for her. 

Then, a moment later, she opened her eyes, looked up at me, stuck her finger in her nose, and gave me blink along with a toothy grin. 

Even at 1 a.m., with a temperature of 103, the girl still has a sense of humor.