Pooper Scooper

If you intend on reading this, please put the snacks and drinks down.

My sweet 4 year old son, Big Boy, has had some sort of nasty "thing" going on in his tummy for the last 2 1/2 weeks.  No other changes in his body, temp, behavior, etc., just a tummy issue. And when I say nasty, I mean it.  Explosiveness. For a couple of days in a row, I had to wash at least 4 pairs of underwear.  His tummy would be really bad one day, and not so bad the next, then the next day he would have no accidents, then the day after he would have explosive diarrhea all over my bathroom floor.  (This is the cleanest my bathroom has ever been, due to the fact that it was cleaned on a daily basis for the majority of this stint.)

Finally, I decided enough is enough and took him into the doctor.  She checked him out and told me to put him on a modified BRAT diet. (banana, rice, applesauce, toast) Add in chicken and whole grain pasta and a fistful of other basically bland foods.  She also told me that I was to get a stool sample.  After a couple of minutes of crossing my fingers and hoping there was no poo on the doctor's floor, the nurse comes in with this little jar of red liquid and explains to me what to do.  Those of you with kids, you have probably done this before, those of you without children, I am SURE you have not.  And those of you who are like me, are going to dry heave after reading this.

The nurse, in her very heavy Spanish accent, opened the jar for me and told me to get a plastic container that I didn't mind throwing away, or one that I could clean out really good to catch the bowel movement.  Excuse me, I thought to myself, did you really just tell me to have my son take a diarrhea crap in a plastic bowl and clean it out?  Now lets think about this.  First, ewww.  Second, how am I going to ensure that he goes in the bowl only and doesn't make any more of a mess than necessary? No thanks! And then she told me I was going to take the miniature scooper, and scoop the poop into the liquid until it fills up to a certain line.  And THEN she tells me if it is after five o'clock, to refrigerate it.  Sure, I will nestle the jar of poop right in between the chocolate pudding and rotisserie chicken. You wanna puke yet?

I am glad that I have been to several girl's camps, back when we were actually allowed to play pranks, and remembered putting plastic grocery bags in the toilets of the 1st year's bathrooms, just to mess with them.  I put the grocery bag in the toilet and forbid anyone to use that bathroom, and gave my son an Oreo cookie to speed up the process.  Worked like a charm.  He did his doodie duty, and said "Mom, come scoop my poop."  Do you know how incredibly close you have to get to do something like that? And I had to scoop several times, to fill up to the line. Thank goodness this was one of my non sugar-binging days, otherwise it would have ALL come back up!  I looked over at the time when I was finished, and it was 4:57. The office closes at 5, and I am pretty sure they don't have a night drop box for stool samples, so into the refrigerator it went!

I had to work the next day, so my husband was lucky enough to take the jar-o-poo into the office.  He told me that he tried to sit it down on the counter where people check in and said "Does anyone want some poop?"  Hahahaha!   I went after work and picked up some probiotic capsules and told him it was lemon-lime candy.  And Sprite was lemon-lime, so it tastes like Sprite! It worked for him.  He took the capsules, proclaimed that it was yummy, and I kid you not, he hasn't had an accident since then.

Story: See Above!
Moral: If your stomach is that upset, don't go to the doctor- well- unless you like scooping poop, get some priobiotics, and take away all food with any sort of flavor.

Fitness/Running Update- curse word, curse word, curse word, my ankleSSSS throb!!!! 

Cheers!