In Honor of Valentine’s Day: A Soap Opera. I mean Poop Opera.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Today I am bringing you all a lovely Valentine’s treat straight from the bowels of my son Joshua. It actually came a few days early but I saved this sweet, chocolatey tale for this special day just to show you all how much you are loved and appreciated. So now, dear readers I present to you, A Poop Opera, a story of poop, panic, and high drama.

It all began last Friday when I was in the shower. Sophie was imprisoned playing in the exersaucer in the bathroom and Joshua was playing in his room. While sudsing my luxurious hair, I heard the pitter-patter of Joshua’s little feet entering the bathroom.

“Mommy,” he said hesitantly, “I have to go potty. Poops.”

Ugh. Inconveeeenient timing. He was still in his PJs, so I leaned my top half out of the shower and helped him get his sleeper unzipped and off his arms. He waddled over to the toilet with his underpants and PJs around his ankles. I instructed him to get the potty seat, put it on the toilet, etc. We don’t have a step-stool for him in that bathroom and the toilet is a little tall, so he struggled a little getting on the pot, and in the process knocked the pee-pee splash guard into the toilet. He was rather appalled by this but I assured him I would take care of it after I got out of the shower. Because there’s nothing like sticking your hand into a freshly-used toilet after you’ve just showered to assure that you feel fresh and clean all day. But I digress.

I closed the shower curtain and hurriedly went back to my beeswax. Sophie hates being incarcerated sitting in the exersaucer so by the time I get out she is always quite fussy, and as I may have mentioned, her screaming is about the most annoying sound in the universe, so my showers are always pretty brief. When I got out Joshua was still sitting on the toilet.

“You all done or are you still going?” I asked
“Still going.” He replied calmly.

So I dried off, completed my skin care regime, lotioned up, got dressed, brushed my hair out…and still he sat on the potty. What the heck was taking so long? I glanced at my son and felt reassured. Joshua had the “poop look” on his face. This is the same look he used to get when he was a toddler. Red & blotchy around the eyes, slight desperation in the eyes…it always means there is a turd in production.

“All done or still going?”
“Still going…Mommy?” His eyes welled up with tears. “How do you make it come out?”

Oh crap. Or lack thereof. He had already been on the potty for about 15 minutes at this point! Joshua used to get constipated when he was potty training, from trying not to poop, but he’s a pretty regular little guy now. I wasn’t sure what to do for him. I tried to talk him through it, but really, what do you say? “Just relax” doesn’t mean much to a 4-year-old! So I rubbed his legs and tried to get him to think about other things, but when the urge to push would come and go without success, he’d get panicked and start crying. He didn’t want me to read him any books or sing songs. I was at a loss and it was all very sad! Sophie puttered around the bathroom playing, and eventually decided she wanted to nurse. So there I sat on the bathroom floor, nursing a toddler and comforting a constipated preschooler. Ahhh. These are the days of our lives!

One more urge to push and Joshua started crying and freaking again. I couldn’t stand it so I called my sister-in-law who has 4 kids and a lot of kiddo-constipation experience. No answer. I called my mom. No answer. I called my other sister-in-law. No answer. Finally, desperately, I called my husband.

“Hello?”

“Hi honey, I’m really sorry to bother you at work, but I’m in the bathroom with Joshua and we’re upstairs and he can’t poop and no one else is answering their phones and I really need you to get on the internet and see what you can find out about how to get him to pass this thing!” I shouted all in one breath.

(Pause) “Ok, no problem, I am on it. I will call you back!”

He is a very good daddy!

Of course about two minutes later, before Bobby could even call back, after a total of approximately 45 minutes on the pot, with much grunting and a very weird suction-y sounds, Joshua brought IT into this world. Woohoo!! I was totally exhausted from the emotion, but as soon as he got that turd out, he was totally fine. Completely untraumatized and ready to party.

Together we peered into the toilet to see what had caused him such trouble. I gasped. “Holy Moly Kid! That is GINORMOUS! No wonder that took you so long!” I exclaimed. It was seriously the largest turd I have ever seen. I do not know how it fit inside Joshua’s little skinny body because I think it weighed about half as much as he does. It. Was. HUGE.

I got Joshua dressed and then took on the task of fishing the feces-covered pee-pee splash guard out of the toilet. That was fun. I won’t go into it. But it was gross. Then I waved goodbye to TURDZILLA (as I’ve decided to name that turd) and flushed the toilet.

Guess what? Turdzilla didn’t want to go. He clogged the toilet. The freakishly large single poop of my almost-four-year-old boy stopped up our toilet!

Considering this piece of crap had really emotionally taxed me and taken up about an hour of my morning, it felt kinda felt good plunging it into oblivion. It gave me a dirty look on the way down, but I’m pretty sure I showed it who was boss!

After waving a fond farewell to Turdzilla, we headed downstairs for what else…breakfast!!! The perfect way to celebrate the arrival and departure of the World’s Biggest Poop. Needless to say, I put a little extra flaxseed in Joshua’s peanut butter toast…

Happy Valentine’s Day everybody! I hope yours moves happily right along without um, any delays of any kind!