The Poop Scoop

warning: This is a post about poop. I'm a mom and this is my life. you have been warned:)

So as I said in my last post, Rusty had his surgery on his shoulder the first week of November. The week before Sophie hadn't pooped in like 6 or 7 days and when she finally did man oh man it was the blowout of the century! (Ok I have a feeling that we're going to say "poop" a lot so to make it more reader friendly let's just say "fluff" instead)I hoped that it was just a one time thing, not fluffing for a week, because she seemed to be pretty uncomfortable and sad towards the end of that week. But the day of Rusty's surgery she hadn't gone in 3 days and was sad and grunty so I called the Ped. office and they wanted me to bring her in to see the doc. So I had a recovering from surgery husband who needed a lot of attention, a newly potty training little boy, and a non fluffing baby who needed to see the doctor. I dropped Conner off at a neighbors house and took Soph to see the doc. They said that they like to see babies who are this little with poop problems because it could be a sign of intestinal troubles (Oh no!) but luckily that wasn't the case and they sent me with the orders of 1 ounce of prune juice a day and glycerin suppositories as needed if she hadn't gone in 4-6 days just to get things moving. For those who don't know (I had to have the doc write it down for me because I was like "a glycer-what a what?") a G Suppository is a little pellet thing that you stick up their bum and it stimulates things and in Soph's case she fluffs in about 2 minutes. So now if they ever ask on who wants to be a millionaire you will win. Anyway, that and the prune juice started things going which was awesome!

But when one problem ends another starts. I guess because life just can't be that easy. 2 days later Conner, who didn't really have the whole fluff thing down himself in the potty training department decided to stop going all together. So we bought him a big blue Jeep toy and put it on top of the TV stand and said when he got a big fluff in the potty he could have it. Well he just started ripping off his pants and couldn't get to the potty fast enough! He sat on the potty for over an hour and no fluff came. And after that he just didn't go. It seemed to start out as he couldn't go and turned into he wouldn't go. He held it for so long that he was making himself sick and he had would wake up with a fever of 102 degrees in the middle of the night crying that it hurt. No matter how many times I told him that all he had to do was go fluff and he would feel all better he still wouldn't go. I called the pediatrician and they said to increase his fiber (lots of fruit, no dairy, etc) and see what happened. Well nothing happened and so I called again the next day (by how we were on day 6) and they had me bring him in. They said that he has a common condition with potty training called poop withholding where the child is simply just afraid. We'll just call it poopaphobia. (or I guess fluffaphobia) The cure to fluffaphobia is time. That's it. They need to get over physiologically whatever is making them scared to go and it could take up to 6 months! So doc said to give him some miralax in apple juice and it should force him to go by the end of the day. Well he still didn't go until 2 days later! That's how much he didn't like it. But he finally went and got his Jeep yay! but he was still scared to go. a month passed and we were still having troubles and I would call my mom up every week almost crying and just talking about my non-fluffing children's potty habits until I found this:

I can't I won't No Way: A book for children who refuse to poop. The ugliest book in the world and makes not a lot of sense half of the time but it's about a little boy who is scared to fluff and one day just does and it's great and fantastic. Something in this really poorly written crazy illustrated book clicked with him and he went the first night I read it to him and has been relatively great ever since. It took him about 3 months to really get over things and some days he dances around and I ask if he has to go potty and he says "I just holding my poop" sigh. but that only last like a day.

So why tell this reeeeally long story about fluff? (and sorry it's so long. I tend to ramble...) well I had no where to turn when I was going through this. Most people I talked to didn't even know it could be an issue and just said "sorry" and I was just so lost as what to do. I don't know if it was just a combination of everything happening at once or WHAT but this was really so hard and I think and I would  have loved to have a recommendation of a book like this.

So that's my poop story. And just in case anybody wants to know Sophie reverted back to her old ways is just one of those magical babies who only fluffs once every 10 days or so. But it definitely saves on wipes! So if your baby is like Sophie then that is normal too and don't freak out like I did!


The End!

The Longest Post in the Land

Oh my goodness I can't believe it's been almost 3 months since I last blogged. I attribute it to my dear, sweet, crazy, non sleeping children. Can I just say that 2 kids is crazy!?! I feel like I could do a newborn with my eyes closed but Conner...well let's just say he's lots of work. So anyway here's what I'm going to do. Instead of having a reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaly long post I'm just going to try really hard to have a long one and post maybe 2 or 3 pics of each holiday/event that happened around here since there have been like 5 holidays I need to cover! oops!

October
This was a funish month. We were all getting used to Sophie being around and she suprisingly got to stay in my room for most of it (I kicked Conner out within a week or so because he was so loud! And when he wasn't loud I thought he was dead so I didn't get much sleep with him) Rusty went to Chicago for 4 days on a business training. I'm glad he only has to travel once a year and we're done with that for a while. It was especially hard with a 2 week old! But the week before that My super duper awesome brother Zach came home from his mission in Leeds. England! yay!

Meeting Sophie for the first time. She was just 2 weeks old.

ER Visit

We had to make an emergency trip to the ER fro Conner's peanut allergy. He ate a cookie that we were unaware had peanut butter in it. It was so sad and scary. He got giant hives all over his body and was wheezing. Definitely don't want to do that again!

Halloween happened a few weeks later. The Sat before Halloween we went up to Oakley and had a Halloween party with Rusty's family and on Halloween day/night we went to Orem to spend it with my family because we like Halloween (even though I didn't dress up) Conner still talks about, and even did today, about how we need to go to Papa's house for trick-or-treating.

Don't let him fool you, this was all he did for the carving of the pumpkin...a few scoops of goo. But ofcourse we don't have a pic of me doing all the rest.

Conner also decided just before Halloween that it would be fun to try potty training again (our first attempt a few months ago was a train wreck!) We've had some ups and downs which are probably a whole post in themselves but he's doing SO good now! 

November

November started out with a bang. Rusty had shoulder surgery to repair all of his dislocations he's had this year. This was on Nov 5th (I think. I'd have to look at a calendar) I sadly never got a picture of him and his giant sling. too bad. It was pretty crazy for a little while here with a 5 week old baby, Conner barely potty training and Rusty recovering from surgery. Let's just say I didn't really sleep for a few weeks (not that I sleep now) with Sophie being a normal new born, Conner needing to go potty in the middle of the night and Rusty needing his ice changed every 4 hours or so. But things slowly got back to normal  and then we celebrated Thanksgiving! 

Conner had a lot of fun at the "park" (my grandma's swing set) with grandpa and Uncle Zach

December

December seems like it was the least busy month of them all if you can believe it! Nobody got sick, nobody had surgery, nobody almost died so it was good! Just the normal Christmas stuff. Conner was a lot of fun this year with Santa coming. On Christmas eve we went to Orem and Christmas Day we went to Oakley.

One of the few moments Sophie  was awake when we went to see the lights

Christmas morning

Yummy cinnamon rolls!

  

 January
On New Years day we went to Thanksgiving Point to the dinosaur museum. Conner LOVED it. especially the big sand box that he could brush for fossils in.

 We also blessed Sophie on the 6th. I'm sure I'll do a post just for that someday so here's a little pic. of her until then!

Man that was looooong. But I guess that's what happens when it's a looooong time inbetween posts! Hopefully I can do better next time now that I'm kind of becoming a normal functioning person again!