Surrounded by Poop

*Warning: This post contains graphic details and images about bowel movements. It also contains words such as: Poop, poo-poo, "loaf" and diarrhea. If you have a weak stomach I strongly suggest you do not read.

Madisen will probably be embarrassed in the future for me telling this story, but really what our parents for, other than embarrassing their kids?! (I know I had my share of embarrassing moments that my parents so lovingly bestowed upon me and I got over it, sort of). Madisen has always had trouble doing the "deed". I am not really sure when it all started, between the ages of one to fourteen months I believe. Around that time she had a solid loaf come out of her and I think from that one bad experience she has somehow got it in her head that holding it in will be better and not hurt as much as pushing it out will. So from that time on she has resolved to holding it in- literary. I don't know how she does this! It's crazy. She has the strongest bum muscles ever. When she is flexing to hold it in, you could grab her by the arms and hold her up and she would be parallel with the floor. It's really sad actually to see her like this, but I don't know what else to do. I have talked to three different doctors about this, and they have all said similar things, that she will, "grow out of it", "there shouldn't be any long term effects", "give her plenty of fiber in her diet", we have tried it all! Even buying Miralax for over a year, which is a powdered substance we added to her drinks and it dissolves, making her bowels softer. Yet, no matter how soft, or even runny her poop is, she still holds it in!

Back in December our poor child had a bowel moment that was so big from holding it in for over two days that it clogged the toilet. It was bad enough, that we had to borrow a snake tool to push it out. After several hours Ryan finally released the "beast" and our toilet was restored again to working order. Well, Wednesday the same thing happened again. Madisen clogged the toilet! It's hard to imagine a three-almost four year old can produce something so large. I worked on the toilet all moring, plunging but got nowhere, and gave up hoping Ryan could again restore our toilet.

However, later that afternoon my parents(bless their hearts) stopped in for a visit, and my dad, the awesome dad he is, got right to work on the"problem". Yet, as my dad was plunging away, the worse thing could have happened at that moment. From all the fiber I had given Madi over the last 24 hours, it had FINALLY caught up with her and she had some serious diarrhea which of course got everywhere! Since the toilet was not working, and I didn't want to take her all the way downstairs to the other bathroom as it was leaking everywhere and with her crying and me freaking out, I grabbed her and put her on Avery's little potty so she could do the rest there. I tried calming her down(which really didn't work) and started cleaning up the horrible mess. I had to take her pants, her socks and of course her underwear full of poo-poo off, as it was dripping down to the floor. I threw her socks in the sink and started rinsing off her underwear in the tub.

As I was doing all this, I stopped and looked around frustrated and overwhelmed by all the poop surrounding me that all of a sudden it hit me so hard, I started laughing like I have never laughed before!!! I realized how bizarre and horrible it all was at the same time, that I couldn't do anything but LAUGH!!! It was one of those moments when you just have no control over anything and all you can do to relieve the stress and the tension is to just laugh. So that's what I did...for over three minutes straight! My insides were rolling and I am sure the twins were thinking the same thing Madi was, "What's going on? Mom, are you going insane?!" My parents out in the other room didn't know what was going on either, as one minute I am trying to calm Madi down by yelling at her to "calm down!" (haha!) and the next, laughing so hard my insides felt like they were on fire! It was just a smelly, nasty situation to be in. One that I would never wish on anyone, but everyone knows with kids it's impossible to escape!

To make a long story short, I was surrounded by poop and it somehow became funny. :)