Most kids at one point or another get constipated. It is a
stinky, painful fact of life. Constipation turns normally happy, fun loving
kids into cranky, screaming, whiny, anal-retentive, poop-holders. When Andrew
was about 6 months old he got really, really constipated. As a new mom I had no
idea what to do to help the process along, so when a friend of mine suggested
giving him some prunes, I was all over the idea. I just wanted my
happy kid back. So I went to the store and purchased a jar of baby food prunes
and the fun began……..
Once we got back home I set Andrew up in his baby-seat and
with spoon in one hand and prunes in the other I was ready to get the poop a-flowing.
However, being new to this whole situation I didn’t understand one really important
fact: Prunes are powerful. I truly believe that they should come with a warning
label for newbie parents who do not understand the pure poop ejecting power
that is contained in a container of pureed prunes. In my extremely ignorant
state I fed Andrew the ENTIRE jar of prunes!!!
Once I was finished feeding Andrew his prunes I put him in his exerscausor
and waited for the prunes to do their job. A couple of minutes later my Mom
called on the phone wanting to chit chat. She asked how everything was going
and I told her about Andrew’s little problem and that I had given him a jar of
prunes. At this point she told me in a VERY panicked voice to go and get some
plastic and put it under Andrew because things were about to get really messy.
I laughed at her, because I thought she was just joking around………and then I looked
over at Andrew………in his formerly cream coloured sleeper……which was no longer
cream coloured!
THERE WAS SHIT EVERYWHERE!!!!!! There was so much poop it had
filled up the entire sleeper and was squirting out the arms, neck and the
little button holes. Every time Andrew jumped in his exerscausor it would squirt
everywhere. Jump, squirt, jump, squirt, jump, squirt. There was poop all over Andrew,
all over the floor, all over our fire place, EVERYWHERE!!!! I just stood there
in shock, looking at my son in horror while great globs of feces sprayed out from my son like he was some kind of obscene poop sprinkler.
Now what I did next was probably one of the stupidest things I
have ever done in my life and all I can say in my defense is that I was in poop
induced shock. Instead of taking my feces coated child directly into the
nearest bath tub and hosing him down, I took him into his room. His Room!!!!
There I tried to take off his sleeper and onesie while cleaning him up with
some wipes. Like that was going to help, I mean we were so far past wipes it
was not even funny. All I managed to do was get crap everywhere! By the time I realized
my horrendous, newbie mom mistake (because veteran moms know in case of poosplosion
you immediately go to the closest hose and drain), there was poo everywhere! It
was all over me, all over Andrew, all over the walls, all over the window, all
over the change table and even all over the floor.
At this point my beautiful, wonderful, non-poop covered
husband walked in from work. He calmly helped me clean up our child and then
our poop covered house. I learned many important lessons that day:
1.
Prunes are powerful. Never give more than 1/3 of a
jar to a child at a time.
2.
Poop happens, so does barf, snot, pee and other
gross stuff so get used to it.
3.
If a child is covered in anything gross (poop,
barf, etc.) take child immediately to the nearest hose and drain and clean up
there. If it is summer time feel free to do this outside. (accept if you have a
newborn, some people frown upon using a garden hose on infants)
4.
Exerscausers are excellent at getting kids to
poop. Our kids pooped in theirs so often we called it the pooperscauser.
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