Sunday, August 26, 2012

The demise of the pink chair

When the levee breaks,
mama,
you got to move.

We all know that our children with Down syndrome tend to have low muscle tone throughout their bodies which happens to encompass all of those little muscles within the intestinal system. Unfortunately, this commonly leads to constipation.  The Bear is no different in her propensity to back up, but every once in a while, our methods to uncork can backfire.


Warning: This post is indeed about poop. Toddler poop.




Toddler Bear has been plugged up ever since she stopped her daily 1-pound consumption of grapes.  Apparently, heavily processed cheese crackers do not have the same laxative properties as all natural fruit.  I turned to Miralax and apple juice for a few days and just little tiny pebbles of stool painfully emerged.  Until Thursday at preschool.  There was a massive Code Brown situation that involved a change of clothing and a rinse in their industrial kitchen sink.  Thankfully, the preschool will welcome her back into their classroom.  Big. Sigh. Of. Relief.  I saw the discarded, soiled clothing and I thought for sure they would be forever traumatized.

I foolishly believed that the worst was over.  I firmly thought that I escaped a massive fecal clean-up that would necessitate a Hazmat suit.

While it does not happen often *wink*, Mama Bear was incorrect.  Saturday rolls around and the Chunky Chicken was innocently playing on her pink armchair with Signing Time in the background.  I was there perfecting my "porcupine" sign because who knows when I might actually need to whip out my vast knowledge of random animal signs like skunk or porcupine.  Uh, does anyone know how to sign kookaburra?  Anyway, I heard a swoosh or a pfffffuuutttt.  Then, the stench hit.  The air purifier went from green light to red light indicating that the air had become very "unpure".

There was a fecal explosion oozing out of Bear's diaper.  Up the back.  Out the diapers holes.  Dripping down her legs.  I was left wondering "when did she eat an orange crayon?!?!"

After letting lose this torpedo of stool, Toddler Bear was content to play while sitting in all of her soiled goodness.  However, this Mama was in a hurry because I feared fainting from the fumes created by a stool that had been cooking since Thursday.  Plus, it was ALL OVER. I grabbed Ellie's hand and nearly dragged her to the bathroom.  Little nuggets of waste were threatening to plop onto the wood floor from her diaper.

Then. . . she stuck her other hand into the back of her diaper.  Really?!  As though this wasn't gross or messy enough, my angel of a daughter felt the need to further cover herself in nastiness?

Upon plucking her into the bathtub, she ran her poo-covered hand with little flecks of orange crayon across the tiled shower.  I detached the shower head and hosed my little darling down all while she was screaming like a tortured banshee because her head got wet.  I felt great satisfaction as I watched rivulets of brown water escaping down the bathtub drain.

Convinced that Ellie was as clean as humanly possible, I removed her from the tub, placed a fresh diaper on her, and went to assess the damage to the floor and the chair.  The floor was an easy clean-up.  I have a dog.  Just kidding! Sophie dog did not indulge in stinky doo-doo.  The chair. . . oh the chair had smears everywhere from where the diaper literally exploded from the force of her little bowels evacuating.  There was no slip cover on this chair.  There was not a detachable cushion. It was all one piece. It looked like a zoo full of monkeys had a hay day flinging poo at it.  No amount of oxyclean, detergent, or even pet cleaning fluid could fix the chair.  I know because I tried.  These chairs are expensive!  We paid $10 at a garage sale, but that is besides the point.

We said good-bye to the pink chair, I scoured the bathtub, and I hid the miralax.


Are you sufficiently grossed out?

If not, my blogger buddy Leah has much more entertaining (and disgustingly hilarious) story about her little girl Cora.  Head on over to Our Little Cora Bean.  Warning, her post is not for the squeamish!





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15 comments:

  1. I'm hoping that you and Leah keep the explosions! You can keep all the fun :-) Bye pink chair!

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  2. I was brave enough to read this while eating breakfast, despite all your warnings. I've been dealing with a constipated kiddo with liquid poo all weekend. I think the stoppage has finally cleared. I really thought I'd be past the poo cleanup stage by now.

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  3. I just wanted to let you know that we too have had many bouts of constipation. Joey can poop huge, gigantic put a grown man to shame poops. We did the Miralax with not much luck and after several days experience what you just described and I was thinking that there MUST be something better. I don't know if this is something that you've considered but we bought PB8 from Vitamin World at the mall and gave Joey 1/2 of the caplet (you can pull them apart, shake out a little and push them back together). We mix it in milk, yogurt, pudding.....anything really. When we started we did this 3-4 days per week and after the first two weeks we cut back to just 2 days per week for a couple of weeks and now we just give him a half caplet about once per week and he's been so regular and pooping normal boy sized poops about three times per week. It's bliss and heaven and just perfect.

    I spoke with our pediatrician about it and he said it wouldn't hurt anything to give it a try. The guys at Vitamin World told me a lot more about probiotics and it reassured me even more. Now I'm a believer.

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  4. Oh i know the terrible terrible effects of miralax to well!!! Have you ever heard of fruiteze???? You should order that stuff and use it instead..thats what we use...WAY better then miralax....you can only order it online...its all natural too!!

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  5. All I can say is that I have been there many times, and I can totally empathize with you!!!!!!! One time, I was taking a shower when Anna Rose was around two. She woke up in the morning and pooped in her diaper. She then took it off and put it everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Abigail ran to my room to tell me the lovely news. I let her know I was coming out of the shower. And my sweet girl was cleaning it when I came into the nursery. I did not ask her to, and I felt so bad for her doing that. That is when we discovered that she has some very unique qualities and could go into something in the medical field. What a mess it was!!!

    And I will not even go into Benji's last episode. Lets just say it required a call to the Dr.

    Ellie is growing so much!!!

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  6. I hate it when I start laughing out loud at my desk when no one is around.... Crazy lady alert! Poor... Well, Ellie seems fine so poor mama bear!

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  7. I am glad you (and all the rest of us) can laugh about it now!

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  8. I've dealt with my share of poo mishaps over the years, so I feel like I can laugh. HA! When Kamdyn was a newborn, she was constipated, but as soon as you lifted her legs, she let it loose. Once I lifted her legs and wasn't prepared and got a canon fire right to the face and the whole front of my body. Yellow, newborn, seedy, nasty, baby poo. YUCK!

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  9. Ah, the joys of motherhood! Yes, Ellie, Cora indeed has some competition! Sorry about your chair!

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  10. Omg, I don't miss those days...whew!

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  11. Ha! With Crohn's in our house, it is all poop talk all the time. Fun times!

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  12. did the purifier really change colors?
    because if it did, I am so impressed with her...

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  13. Oh yes, the purifier really did change colors. It was quite impressive. I think I needed a face mask!

    You all have some great stories! As disgusting as it is, I am glad that we can all go back and laugh:)

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  14. That was hilarious. Been there done that. Still hilarious.

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  15. I am giggling while I am reading this.......only because we have been there ourselves MANY times. Thankfully Madi seems to like to do it while she is on daddy's watch so he gets to be the one to deal with it.

    Bye bye pretty pink chair!! :)

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