I cried.
I cried for joy.
I cried for joy yesterday.
I cried for joy yesterday because Garrett pooped.
I cried for joy yesterday because Garrett pooped in the potty.
I cried for joy yesterday because Garrett pooped in the potty
on his own free will!Those of you who know us know that we've been battling Garrett's pooping refusal for awhile. The kid is almost four, after all. Up until a few days ago, he was still pooping in a diaper. Like a baby. How embarrassing. What terrible parents.
He hasn't EVER had an accident in his undies. He's never pooped in them, and he's been wearing undies for almost a year. He has complete control over his bowel movements, and we know this because he holds his poop in until he has on a diaper at night, and then he releases.
Several months ago, he began kicking us out of his room when it was poop time. A few extra-special people have witness the phenomena. Garrett would run around the house, screaming, all the while insisting that nothing was wrong. We'd put a diaper on him; he'd go in his room and slam the door and then moments later call for us.
A few months ago, GrandTom had had enough and did some research and found the first article that I'd seen that was actually helpful. I had tried to research on the internet for some hints, but everything I found just reaffirmed that I am, in fact, a terrible mother. My kid is
almost four and doesn't poop in the potty AND (horrors!) I work outside the home. I must not care anything about him. I quickly gave up on the internet research. I'm glad GrandTom didn't, though.
Here are the steps I learned from the article (please don't call CPS):
Step one: get the kid to
at least poop in his diaper while in the bathroom. This way, he begins to associate pooping with bathroom. This step was pretty easy for Garrett. In fact, I think he enjoyed the privacy of the bathroom. He'd do his normal frantic running about the house, then run into the bathroom, turn around, scream "DON'T COME IN HERE!" and slam the door.
This was as far as we had gotten when I got a call mid-day on Monday from Garrett's daycare. It seems he was in his frantic state, and was hysterically crying for me. They knew he was constipated, but they couldn't give him any comfort. I left school (thanks to my fabulous student teacher!), picked Garrett up, and then remembered the article and the next steps. Time to put them into action:
Step two: Break the poopoo/pain cycle by making the poopoo less painful. How? Suppositories and stool softeners. Oh yeah... We got home, I took off his undies, and managed to hold a writhing, screaming,
strong Garrett down while administering the suppository. It took approximately one minute to take action, all the while I was holding Garrett on the potty. He was screaming like the possessed: "LET ME UP!!!! AAAHHHHH I HATE POOPOO!!" etc. I almost relented, and then I had an imaginary conversation with my mom. In my head, I heard her voice clear as day: "Erin, do not let him go. He is almost four years old and he can poop in the potty." I held on. And then...poop! Instantly Garrett quit screaming. Shock. He looked in the potty almost unbelieving. More poop. A slight smile. More poop. More looking, bigger smile. More poop. He did it!! Immediately, he said, "mom, now I can go to Chuck-E-Cheese, and get ice cream, and get a toy, and have my birthday party...and...and" (all these are things we'd promised him in the past few months in our desperation).
He also wanted Braden to come in and see. Braden was not so big on this idea, but I made him ("You better go look at your brother's poop. When you learned to poop, he looked at yours."). Then, the whole family went to Chuck-E-Cheeses to celebrate.
Step three: I began doping Garrett's milk with liquid stool softener. The package (Fleet brand Pedia-Lax) says it "generally produces a bowel movement in 12 to 72 hours." They must say "generally" because of children like Garrett who will do ANYTHING to avoid pooping. The next two nights, Garrett also received a suppository. It wasn't easy, and it wasn't pretty, but we got the results that we wanted: poop IN the potty.
Yesterday, our work this week paid off. In the middle of the day, Kyle was on the couch watching the A&M vs. UT basketball game, and I was on the computer grading papers. Braden came running out of Garrett's room: "Mommmmmmy! Daaaadddddy! Garrett pooped in the potty!!!!" Kyle and I looked at each other in shock and disbelief. Could it be?
And it was. And it was glorious. And Garrett was SOOO proud. He wanted Cali, our chihuahua, to see. I found her and held her up to see. She wasn't very impressed. I cried. I hugged. We all high-fived. We went fishing to celebrate.
This morning about 7 am, Garrett came to my side of the bed and said, "Mommy, can you take my diaper off so I can poop in the potty?" I took the diaper off and rolled over and went back to sleep. Ten minutes or so later, he came back, naked from the waist down and holding a wipe. "Mommy, can you wipe my bootie?" he asked as he bent down to touch his toes. I did. And then I rolled over and went back to sleep. When I finally got up an hour or so later, the first thing I had to do was go see the poop. There it was. It was glorious. Two poops in the potty on his own!
Later this morning, right in the middle of the sermon at church, Garrett tooted. I gave him my stern mom/teacher look, and he said, "I have to go poopoo." So we went. And he did. And it was beautiful.
It seems as if Garrett's problem is resolved. Thank God. Praise God.
I do have video of Garrett sitting proudly on the potty discussing his poop. The video even shows his poop. I thought about posting the video on the blog for all the world to see, but I think I'll save it for his prom date. I'm a good mom, after all.
