Blow Out

WARNING: This story is about poop! If this subject sickens you, stay away!

My cute son has a constipation problem. We have tried everything "natural" to remedy the situation. Prune juice, fruits galore, wheat bread....everything fiber. Nothing seemed to help. The doctor finally told us to put Josh on Milk of Magnesia (M.O.M.) to help his problem. We've been doing this for 4-5 months now and although it hadn't been as bad, it was still not the correct "pudding" consistency & he still screamed bloody murder everytime a bowel movement took place.

My sweet mom was in town the past 2 weeks. One morning Josh woke up scratching his ears and she insisted that we went to the pediatrian because he may have an ear infection (we had gone to a wading pool the day before and he fell face first in the water and thought water in the ears may have caused the problem). He did not have an ear infection. He is getting his 4 "i teeth" right now and that sometimes causes earaches. Anyway, my mom mentioned his pooping problem to the doctor. He asked how much M.O.M. we were giving him. "1 teaspoon once a day", I proudly responded. He said we could give him 4 times that amount.

So, we started to give him 1 Tablespoon once a day instead. We started yesterday. Here's the result:

Ryan signed up to be a mentor to 1st year med students. We met at "Aqui es Mexico" (see previous post). There was Ryan, me, Josh, and 2 other students, and 1 significant other. We were having a great time when a stench overcame the table. I looked over at Josh and he started whimpering. I knew it was time for a diaper change. So, I apologetically excused myself from the table and changed his diaper. No problem, right? A tiny, little, stinky poop. No big deal. We came back to the table with smiles on our faces.

Again, a great conversation going. Laughter, smiles,....then a fart. A strained look came across Josh's face and I knew we were in for it. He had had 3 little poops already that day, but no biggies yet. (sidenote: 90% of the time we are at a restaurant, he has a bowel movement. Is this common?) His face went bright-red and he set it down on the table. Then a big cry. I hurried and picked him up to take him to the restroom. As I did that, I looked down at the highchair he was sitting in. Poop everywhere he was sitting. I politely said to Ryan, "I'll be back, could you please take care of the chair?"

I went into the bathroom (where coincidentally there was no baby changer), layed him on the tile floor and took off his clothes. It was everywhere! Down his legs, up his back, bottom of his feet. Just plain gross. Ryan knocks on the door and says that it was requested that he washed the chair off in the bathroom & had a restaurant washcloth in his hand. He did that as well as gave our little guy the best spongebath that he could. It was all over the floor when we finished (good thing we brought a lot of wipies). I'm sure the entire restaurant could hear Joshua scream the entire 10 minutes it took us to clean him off. As his clothes were saturated, we had to ask for a plastic bag & finish dinner in his diaper. This wouldn't be a big deal, but our baby has an umbilical hernia that looks like an outie the size of a cherry tomato. We get a lot of stares and unnecessary comments from people. So rude! But, thankfully we were with med students who are compassionate and understanding of these sorts of things.

We did finish dinner, with sheepish stares our direction, as Josh cried in either my lap or Ryan's as we ate. I can honestly say that it was one of the most embarassing moments I've experienced. Not the most (I'm always getting myself into situations), but it made it into my top 10.