Morphing into Mama

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!)

Practice Makes Perfect

"Don't touch, Bah-bie.  That's yucky.  That's my pee pee.  I pee pee in potty."

I peeked around the corner to find Bah-bie staring intently at the contents of the toilet bowl.  Tod-lar continued to give Bah-bie the blow-by-blow.

"I'm gonna frush pee pee now.  Excuse me."

After he flushed, he struggled for a moment to pull up his underwear and shorts as Bah-bie chattered away at him, her voice full of questions.  I struggled to contain my excitement.  I wanted to give him the opportunity to announce his major accomplishment himself.

"Mama!  Mama!  I pee pee in potty!" he exclaimed as he ran into the kitchen.

"YOU DID?!  THAT IS SO AWESOME!  YOU MUST BE SO PROUD OF YOURSELF!  HOW DO YOU FEEL?!  ARE YOU EXCITED?!  ARE YOU PROUD?!"

"YEAH!  I CITED!  I PWOUD!"

I held up my hand, and he gave me a firm high-five.

"Isn't it cool that you can do all these new things BY YOURSELF?!  Isn't that cool?!"

"YEAH!!"

We high-fived again and danced a celebratory pee-pee-in-the-potty dance.  Bah-bie joined us. 

After a couple of moments, my eyes began to swell with tears.  I fought them back so as to not confuse Tod-lar.  I wanted him to see my excitement, not the part of me that's mourning the end of his babyhood.

After we'd worn ourselves out from dancing, the kids went outside to play.  Five minutes later, Tod-lar rushed back in and asked me to get him a pull-up.

"Why do you need a pull-up, Bud?  Do you need to go pee pee again?"

"No.  I need go poo poo."

"Do you wanna try to poo poo in the potty?"

"No.  I just pee pee in potty.  I wanna pull-up to go poo poo."

I gave him a pull-up.  He squatted in a corner to do his business.

"Why didn't you make him poop in the toilet?" my mother later asked.

"Because if I didn't need to 'make' him pee in the toilet, then I don't need to 'make' him poop in it either.  He'll do it when he's ready."

One thing at a time.

Later that night, after bath, I walked in the bathroom and found Tod-lar sitting on the toilet -- without a toddler seat.  His little booty was just hanging there precariously over the bowl.

"I go poo poo in potty, Mama."

I checked the toilet but no found kids in the pool.

"Um, Bud.  There's no poo poo in there.  Are you just practicing?"

"Yeah.  I pwacticing." 

"Well, it's always good to practice."

And that's what he's been doing the majority of his time the past couple of days.  He practices pooping and pees about every ten minutes in the potty.  I don't think I've ever seen someone spend so much time at the toilet.  Now if I could just teach him to clean it.

So here we are.  Nearing the end of a long road.  A road that was not paved with, um, gold.  But more on that later .  .  . in the interim, we're all just enjoying Tod-lar's newfound independence.

Down with the poo tower (almost)!

This One Will Have You Running for the Phone to Call Child Protection Services

A little over two weeks ago, Tod-lar started resisting naps again.  He does this every once in a while – especially when he appears to be growing through a developmental growth spurt.  He’s always gotta check to see whether or not the boundaries are still firmly in place. 

The resistance started one day with his declaring, “Tod-lar no take a nap, Mama.  I no tired.”

“Uh, Buddy, it’s only 10:30 in the morning.  No need to worry about nap right now.  Just keep climbing that jungle-gym, okay?” 

“Okay, Mama.  Tod-lar no take nap.”

Yeah, whatever. 

So then we went home, I fed the kids some lunch, and they went down for nap.  Five minutes later, I heard a loud whisper coming from his speaker, “Mama!  Mama!”  He was trying to get my attention without waking up Bah-bie (formerly known as In-fant).  How considerate. 

I waited five or ten minutes before going in to tell him to shut the hell up – but, you know, in a really nice way.

Then about 20 minutes later, while attempting to eat my lunch, I heard my name in that loud whisper again, “Mama!  Mama!”  After another 10 minutes of listening to it escalate in volume, I trekked back upstairs to tell him yet again to shut the hell up – still in a nice way, but just a little less nice. 

However, this time, as soon as I opened his door, I was hit with a not so sweet smell emanating from his bottom. 

“I poo poo, Mama.”

“So I smell.”

I changed his diaper and sent him back to bed with his protesting the entire time.

“Tod-lar want to get up, Mama.”

“Sorry, Buddy.  It’s still naptime.  Now go back to bed, please.  If you can’t sleep, then rest.  But this is naptime.”

He spent the next hour and a half talking very loudly to himself in his bed.

This went on for four straight days.  I’d put him down and a half-hour later, he’d poop.  I’d change his diaper, then he’d spend rest of naptime chattering.  On the third and fourth days, I tried putting him to bed later so he would poop before going down.  It didn’t matter.  No matter how much later I put him to bed, he’d still manage to poop a half-hour into nap. 

On the fifth day, I brought him to daycare and warned our now former caretaker (more on that later) about his new pooping pattern.  For the next three days at daycare he did NOT poop during nap – not even once.  In fact, he willingly went down and slept for a full two hours – three days in a row.  Bastard.

Then on the eighth day, he’s back home with me.  Guess what he does.  That’s right.  He poops a half-hour into his nap!  In fact, he repeats this pattern for three days in a row while home!  Bastard.

So on that third day home, I made a radical decision.  Instead of going into his room and changing his diaper I said to him, “Honey, this is naptime, not poop-time.  I will not change your diaper.  You will just have to sleep in it.”

Are you running for the phone now?  Because let me tell you, if he had known there is a Child Protection Services, he would have called them.  He was totally mortified.

“Mama!  Change my diaper, please!”

“No, Bud.  I’m sorry.  This is naptime, not poop-time.  I will change you when naptime is over.”

I shut his door, went downstairs, and had lunch while my son stewed in poo for a little over an hour.  I know it’s not nice, but, hey, it’s not like I was making him stew in my poo . . . or nuclear waste. 

“Why did you do that?” Husband asked.

“Because I’m actually starting to think that he’s deliberately pooing during naptime to try to get out of taking his nap,” I said with deep sincerity.

“What?!  You think he’s pooping-on-command?  That’s absurd!”

“I know it sounds absurd, but look at the pattern:  4 days in a row while home, he poops a half-hour into nap no matter how much later I put him down.  Then 3 days in a row, he doesn’t poop during nap while at daycare and actually takes his full 2 hour nap.  Now he’s home again, and poops a half-hour into nap for 3 days in a row, and doesn’t sleep at all.  I know it sounds absurd, but look at the data! 

Besides, he needs to take his nap.  He’s a basket case by 5 o’clock.  He’s bouncing off the walls and falling down all over the place.  He’s not sleeping enough.  Let’s just see what happens tomorrow.”

Guess what happened the next day?  Come on, guess!

He did NOT poop during nap.  In fact, he slept a blissful two hours. 

Now, I have to admit that I was still even a bit skeptical that he had been deliberately pooping during nap, so I emailed a very good friend of mine who has quite a bit more experience with children. 

Could it be? I asked her. 

“Yes,” was her response.

AHA!  I KNEW IT! 

Husband, however, is still skeptical.  But guess who’s upstairs napping and NOT pooping?  (And it’s not Husband, because he’s at work.)

But there’s more – guess who has control over his bowel movements, which means he may be ready for some more potty learning?  Yep.  That would be the Tod-lar.

Stay tuned . . .

Little Red Booty

Hoarding is a natural instinct.  Squirrels hoard nuts.  Women hoard shoes.  Bachelors who live along the California coast hoard phone numbers of easy women with fake boobs.  And Tod-lars hoard poop. 

See, it used to be that whenever Tod-lar pooped in his diaper, he would immediately tell me so I could change it.  Now, however, there could be a large and highly visible odorous cloud hovering over his hiney, and when I ask him if he has poop in his diapers, he’ll vehemently deny it. 

This is normal, and I, frankly, should just be grateful that he’s not smearing the walls with his poo.  However, I eagerly look forward to the day when he is disgusted by having shit stuck to his ass and agrees to poop in the potty, which he is no where near doing.  Eventually, I will have to give up our hippy-dippy (and I mean no offense to any of you hippies out there, and I would link you if I could find your URL!) potty learning technique and resort to getting Nazi on his ass (no pun intended). 

In the interim, Tod-lar is learning the hard way why hoarding his poop may not be the best idea. 

“Mama, my butt hurt,” he claimed, slowly approaching me like a gunslinger in a showdown so as not to let his butt cheeks rub together. 

“I’m sure it does, Honey.  You were stewing in that poo for quite a while yesterday.”

“Yeah.  I ran around with poo in pants.”  He looked up at me doe-eyed.  I felt momentarily bad for him.  The poor kid’s never had a diaper rash.  He did once have the ring of fire when he had diarrhea but never a diaper rash. 

“And what happened?”

“I didn’t tell Mama.  No.  I ran around with poo in pants and it hurt my little booty.”

“That’s right, Bud.  Stewing in poo hurts your little booty.”

“Yeah.  Little booty all red.”

“I know, Bud.”

“Maybe go away.”

“It will, Bud.  I promise.”

Dude Looks Like A Baby

Everything was going well with the potty learning until the other day when Tod-lar caught himself about to poo into the toilet.  He was lounging on the potty while I went into the other room to give him privacy.  After about a minute, I heard him starting to grunt.  I peeked around the door and saw the poo grimace.  I eagerly listened for the splash that usually follows a person’s poo grimace, but no splash came.  Instead, Tod-lar got this what-the-hell-am-I-doing?-I-can’t-poop-in-the-potty! look on his face.  The next thing I heard was, “I’m done.”

I tried coaxing him into lounging just a bit more, hoping he would unload one, but he refused.  So I got him off the toilet thinking he would just poop in his pull-ups.  No dice.  He was determined to hold it in as long as possible.  Finally, after an hour of him avoiding me – which was really strange since I’m usually trying to avoid him, you know, because he shadows me around the house, not because I don't love him – he went into the corner and did his business.  Since then, he won’t sit on the potty, doesn’t want to watch me sit on the potty, won’t tell me when he’s pooped, and even insisted on wearing only diapers again.  So much for potty learning readiness.

To make matters worse, he’s been insisting on eating In-fant’s baby food, demands a bib at every meal, and makes these strange guttural noises, which I think are supposed to sound like a baby gurgling.  Now, while regression is a totally normal part of the potty learning process, it usually only involves wanting to wear diapers, not reverting to infancy.  At this rate, he won’t be getting his own apartment by the end of the year.  Instead, he’ll be hauling Moose and Kitty up my vaginal canal and knocking at my cervix. 

And, if that weren’t bad enough, I’m alone with the kids this weekend while Husband mountain bikes in Moab.  (We were all scheduled to go on this trip, but you know what happened last time we did an RV weekend.)  So I’m stuck here taking care of one infant and one wanna-be-infant, I’m premenstrual, and I haven’t had my fix today.  I’m seriously considering hurling myself out a window.  Then again, I must not feel too bad since our house is only a single story. 

I called a therapist friend of mine to tell her about Tod-lar’s extreme regression.  She chalked it up to normal and told me to just keep asking him if he wants to use the potty, but not insist he actually do it.  “The key to this process,” she said, “is expose, expose, expose.” 

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to expose myself to a bottle of vodka.

In the interim, here are some old pictures of the poo grimace.