Poop Post

WARNING: THIS POST IS ABOUT POOP (OR THE LACK THEREOF)

My world basically revolves around poop, who's pooped, pooping, or in need of a poop. This mostly applies to my 2 year old (and sometimes my cat, but rarely my husband).

My daughter is like a Swiss watch...(or is it train? I can never remember.) Anyway, this kid's body is a perfectly timed machine. She wakes, eats, poops, pees, and sleeps all within a 30 minute window for each bodily event every single day, I could set my watch to it....except.....when it doesn't go that way.

Let's say we're leaving preschool, and I take a little too long getting out the door and to the car...

(I swore I would never be that mom who is talking to other moms and keeps saying, "I'll be right there..." then she isn't right there because she's talking... but, alas, I am that mom and I'm not ashamed because adult conversation is at a premium, I've gotta take that shit when I can get it!),

...then let's say, I'm tired of feeding her PB & J and we stop at the Greek place for some gyros and shawarma (YUM). As a result, we get home later than usual, now it's past poop time and on to nap time....this, well, this is a problem, and here's why.

She is a Swiss train/watch, that means if we miss a stop, it's too bad, we must move on to the next and cross our fingers to avoid a derailment (or popped spring...or whatever). So she naps, wakes, eats, and pees as normal for the rest of the day, which should be fine right?

WRONG!!! Because now she's stopped up. That extra day's worth of caca has gummed up the works and now her "tuckus hurts" which makes her not want to poop, which makes her skip another daily poop, which exacerbates the situation and leads to worse tuckus hurting and so on...it's a vicious cycle! Until...

The day when it all comes to a head (sorry for the visual). This day usually falls 2-4 days from the initial missed poop, and starts off full-cranky (imagine how you'd feel, I'm guessing not cheerful). Then right around normal poop time, the dancing starts. Imagine you had to clench a dime between your butt cheeks and go about your daily business...that's the dance, only it usually involves a lot of back and forth pacing.

This day also involves a lot of false potty runs.

"Mama! I gotta go pee pee" (she never says she needs to poop)

"Ok honey, run to the potty, I'll be right there."

"Ok" *runs to the potty* "Uuuuummmm....they're not coming" (in reference to the poo poos)

"Ok"

This process repeats MANY times over the course of her 30 minute poop window and usually results in nothing. As we move on to the next phase (nap), the dance continues. She squeezes the dime, and I push forward...

"Ok baby, get your light turned off, close the door and turn on your fan...do you need to poo poo?"

"No!"

"Ok, light, door, and fan."

"Ok"

"Do you need to poo poo?"

(dime dance rages on)

"NO!"

"Ok, good job getting ready for your nap, climb up in my lap, let's rock and sing"

We proceed with our nap routine and she gets into bed

"Night night baby, see you when you wake up"

"I have to go potty!"

"Ok, let's run to the potty!"

"ok..." *runs* "....uuuummmm they're not coming"

"Ok, get back in bed."

"Ok...uh....my tuckus hurts!"

"I bet it does, it hurts because you need to poo poo"

"uh, no I don't meed to poo poo (no that isn't a typo, she says meed CUTE!!)

And yet again, this process continues for another 30-90 (no joke) minutes, until she's crying about poop and sleep and scary rooms, and I'm crying about loss of my precious nap-detox-time, and I FINALLY figure something out that will keep her rump on the stump (I just made that up) long enough for peristalsis to take over.

As she makes the face, I know we're in the clear, all is right with the fecal world, and we're on the fast track to happy town, until I realize that the Swiss twatch has missed Napville Station and...well... that's a whole other post.