Thursday, January 30, 2014

A Poo Post

Feel free to skip this is poo isn’t your thing. I mean, who does have a thing for poo? Not me. And yet if someone were outside looking into our house, they might think our entire family has a thing for poo.

We might even seem a little obsessed. See, one of the symptoms of 5p- syndrome is constipation so even though Olivia is seven years old, we keep a pretty close eye on her bowel movements, or, as the case may be, her lack of them.

If she goes more than three days without sitting on the toilet and forcing out a turd the size and consistency to make a grown man groan, we start to worry and we start to push apple juice and fiber and, as a last resort, milk of magnesia, her way.

Much celebration ensues on the days where O announces, “I think I need to poo.”

We make a production of putting her cushy tushy (a soft ring placed on the toilet to help her relax and not have to worry about falling in) on the toilet seat and setting up her step stool as a place to rest her feet. Then we make sure she had the latest issue of whatever magazine we have in the house. She sits and gets to work.

The past few days Olivia has produced excellent poo on at least three consecutive days. It’s been awesome. She hasn’t even had to strain to do this. We’re all very relieved.

Well, Alyssa probably doesn’t care as much about her sister bowel movements as Tom and I do but you know what I mean.

About a week ago, though, things didn’t move as easily as we might hope.

Olivia sat on the toilet in the downstairs half bath for probably twenty minutes with nary a turd in sight. She worked so hard and got no results.

I checked on her several times, asking if she was okay, if she need anything, if she was ready for me to wipe her.

Finally, she suggested maybe she should go upstairs and try to poo in the bathroom up there.

I figured, what the heck, maybe she and her poo needed a change of scenery. I gathered her cushy tushy, the step stool and her magazine and we headed up the stairs, her bare butt staring me in the face the entire way. I settled her on the toilet and started to leave the room (I mean, come on, who needs an audience when trying to take a poo?) when she stopped me and asked, “What about the heat?”

She wanted me plug in and turn on the space heater. Huh. Okay. If it helps her be more comfortable so be it.

Less than five minutes later she was shouting from her throne, “I’m done!!!”

The change of scenery, the heat and the magazine did the trick and she was poop free for another day. Yay!! Much celebration took place. But upon glancing into the toilet, I saw why this batch of poo had caused so much trouble. Poor baby, was all I could think.

But I wiped her, flushed and walked away.

Sigh. And for the next twenty four hours or so, the toilet refused to flush right. It took a couple of tries each time someone used that toilet. The toilet bowl would fill almost to the top and then everything would marinate while the water slowly, oh so slowly, drained out of the toilet. I know that disgustingly giant log Olivia had expelled was in the pipe, just taking up space and making the water drain so slowly.

Finally, after a day or more, the toilet went back to flushing normally. I’m guessing the gross thing had finally dislodged and made it way to the poop afterlife, also known as the septic tank. Yuck!

I still don’t understand how someone so tiny (but wait, she finally broke the 50 pound mark!) creates such massive poop. It’s unfathomable. And gross. And, poor kid, obviously sometimes painful.

2 comments:

Julie said...

Riley stops up our toilet at least once a week. :(

Julie said...

Riley stops up our toilet at least once a week. :(