This is just a wonderful topic to write about...poo-poo.  For a little over a week Jacob has been constipated. I know my poor baby, I'm writing about your little bum.  His last BM was on Monday morning and I must say I know it hurt him coming out.  It was so big, it almost clogged the toliet when I flushed it away.  He was in a lot of discomfort with it because as soon as he went, he pointed to his diaper and said poo-poo and he didn't run away from me when I went to pick him up to change his diaper. 

For the rest of the week, I could tell he was maybe trying to "do his thing" but nothing every came out.  So I thought it either is not wanting to come out, or that he doesn't want it to come out because it's painful.  Last night we were hanging out at the Shoppes and he stopped what he was doing and started making these wierd faces and arching his back (almost like a scared cat) and his legs were stiff.  I knew something was happening with his little bottom.  He stopped, I grabbed him and checked his diaper, but nothing was there except a little "shart" So off he went playing again.  Then five minutes later he started to do the same thing, again, no poopie.  At this point I knew that he was the one preventing the poopy from coming out. 

I called the on call nurse and she gave me some suggestions.  When we got home we put him in a warm bath with baking soda.  Strange, I know.  Anyway, he SCREAMED the entire time he was in the tub.  The nurse told us to have him squat in the tub.  Yeah, like that was going to happen on command with an out of control screaming child.  So there I went in the tub with him showing him what to do.  That didn't help, so we resorted to holding him down.  I took the top half of the body and Bill took the bottom half.  We held him there, torturing our child for a couple of minutes until, honestly, we couldn't handle it anymore.  Then we had to go straight to the bedroom and insert a suppository in his little bottom.  Yeah, that was FUN!  Again, he was screaming so much he was starting to choke himself.  I finally got all of it in, well most of it anyway and then we were told to squeeze his butt cheeks closed for 10 minutes.  Yeah, I wonder if the nurse had actually tried this whole sequence of events on a 20 month old.  Nearly impossible.  We put on Mickey Mouse for him and after holding his cheeks togethe for a few minutes we let him lay down and watch the cartoon.  Well within a minute of him laying down, out came the suppository.  Bill and I looked at eachother like "what do we do now."  Really, neither of us had the energy to do that again, so we let him sleep through the night and figured we would start again when he wasn't so tired. 

Saturday morning he woke up nice and early, despite not going to sleep until close to 10pm.  He came and layed in bed with us and then Bill touched his bottom and guess what..there was something there!  YIPPEE!!!  He finally had a BM.  It was a fairly big one and pretty hard.  But at least he had one and didn't go through any convulsions to pass it.  We cleaned him up and he got a bottle of good old prune juice.  About 15 mintues later, there was another one...this one was a lot softer.  That prune juice was working fast.  By 10 in the morning he had 4 BMs and each one got softer and softer.  Now I think we are going in the other direction...with diarrhea. 

We played at the park, brought him home and he actually had lunch a half PB&J and some corn, yum yum.  He gobbled it all up.  I think he hadn't been eating because his tummy wasn't feeling well.  After his lunch I layed him in his crib and he almost instantly fell asleep.  I think all the pooping made him worn out.  So now he is peacefully sleeping. 

Tonight Bill and I have a retirement party to attend.  Matt, Lora and Malaya are going to watch Jacob for the few hours we are gone.  I really hope he does okay.  this will be the first time (other than church) that we leave him with someone other than family.  Wish us luck!

So until next time...mommy and daddy love you!