What the...?

I haven't been posting very consistently over the past few months, but I still regularly check my Sitemeter stats, which, accordingly, are pathetic. Most of my hits come from a segment of the world's most desperate, balding men seeking the answer to life's most important question: does Nioxin work. And of course they leave this site ultimately unfulfilled.

Today as I checked the daily numbers, I was floored by the Google search that listed my blog as one of the top potential sources of information to the following query:

"music to help you defecate"

I don't know whether to be horrified or honored.

But since I also like to be helpful, let me first ask my bound-up compadre a question: are you looking for music that will relax your bowels or would you rather find something that will scare the sh** out of you? If the goal is the latter, I would suggest any of a variety of death metal bands out there...seriously scary stuff. If that doesn't work, give Clay Aiken a shot (sorry Mom).

If it's relaxation you're going for, might I suggest some smooth jazz, Air Supply (possibly falling in the scary range), Yanni (Hey! What happened to the mustache?), or just plain ol' nature sounds. Hmmm. I wonder...if the sound of running water makes you have to pee, does the sound of...oh never mind.

If none of that works, just take some freakin' Miralax.

Bucket-Trained

Puke patrol is one of the downsides and necessary evils of parenthood. Kids get sick. Kids hurl. They need to be comforted. And someone to clean up the mess. That's where I come in. I have traditionally been the one to mop up, sop up, and rinse out the barf, because if I didn't do it for the girls, I'd be cleaning up double barf doses after Diane hurled from smelling the hurl. Yay me.

When kids are young, they have no concept of rushing to the bathroom when they're sick. If you're fortunate enough, they'll at least notify you that their tummy's aren't feeling too good, giving you the opportunity to rush them to the can. In the middle of the night? Forget it. You're alerted by their wails after the fact. You rush into their rooms to find their pajamas, sheets, comforters, stuffed animals, walls, and anything else within range soaked with barf. Once you get everything cleaned up and changed, you set out a bucket and put your child back to bed with these specific instructions: "OK, if you feel the need to throw up again, go to the bathroom. If you can't make it to the bathroom, I am placing this bucket (show them the bucket) right next to your bed (show them the placement of the bucket). Please, please, please, please, oh please use it." And an hour later you're changing the sheets again.

This week I think we experienced a major breakthrough in the area of nighttime puke cleanup. Diane had gone to bed and I was up putzing around when Kailey walked out to the family room with tears in her eyes. "Daddy, my tummy hurts," she cried. I escorted her to the bathroom where I asked her if she felt like she had to puke or just go to the bathroom. She said the latter, so I evacuated the premises while she did her business. She felt better afterwards, so I tucked her back in bed before getting ready for bed myself. I was brushing my teeth when I heard all hell breaking loose.

"AHHHHHH! I DON'T WANT TO FEEL LIKE THIS ANYMORE!"

I rushed out of our bathroom and into the girls' to find Kailey hunched over the bowl and Diane violently rubbing her back and willing herself not to join her at the bowl. Kailey was in full freak-out mode, cursing heaven and earth and everything in between. "WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?!! retch. I HATE PUKING!!! cough, cough, sputter. I WANT THIS TO BE OVER RIGHT NOW!!"

She finished up and Diane got her back to bed, puke free, while I went to fish the bucket out of the garage. I returned to her room and gave her the bucket spiel, fully expecting to be rinsing out sheets in the not-too-distant future. I went to bed and, despite my anxiety of impending puke patrol, fell quickly to sleep. I was awakened an hour later.

"AHHHHHHH!"

I shot out of bed and ran into Kailey's room where I found her sitting up in bed clutching the bucket to her chest. I grabbed the bucket and guided her into the bathroom, and she finished emptying out the contents of her stomach. To my amazement (and slight disgust), Kailey had used the bucket. Rinsing out a bucket is SO MUCH EASIER than rinsing out sheets. For the first time ever, we escaped a nighttime barf-o-rama without having to change the sheets, something I consider a major accomplishment. And for once I'm GLAD my girls are growing up.

Squeezing the Charmin

Last week Kailey waddled into the family room with her pants down around her ankles, bent over and asked me, "Daddy, do I have any toilet paper on my bottom?", giving me yet another reason to hate Charmin toilet paper.

What's to hate about Charmin, you ask? Well, nothing...if you have a home full of adults, or at least older children who are able to economize when it comes to TP usage. You see Charmin likes to boast that their toilet paper is so much thicker and so much more absorbent than their competitors that it requires fewer squares to wipe your tender derrière. See for yourself:



And it's true. Charmin is so thick that, if necessary, a single square would be sufficient to wipe the butts of a family of four for a week. But trying to explain to your kids that they can and should use less is a whole 'nother ball o' wax. Their main concern is not getting the poop off their butts. That's secondary. Their main concern is not getting poop on their hands, and that requires a hell of lot more than three puny squares. To ensure hand cleanliness requires no fewer than twenty, 12-ply squares of Charmin...per wipe, which means:

1. The average spool life of a roll of Charmin in our home is approximately one day, or four bowel movements. Whichever comes first.
   
2. The rubber from my plunger is practically sucked off the wooden handle from overuse. I spend more time in the bathroom unclogging toilets than I spend on the throne catching up on my reading. That's a lot of frickin' time.
3. Our water bill is through the roof from multiple flushes, mainly because I'm too lazy to go get the plunger. I usually have to flush three times, bringing nasty water to the very brim of catastrophe before retrieving the plunger. You'd think I'd learn.

That's my initial reason for hating Charmin toilet paper. Then came the Kailey incident, which I know was incited by yet another Charmin commercial, a commercial that I can't find on You Tube. Perhaps you've seen it. In it star the same cute bears you see in the clip above, but in this one Baby Bear has used a competitors toilet paper, and as a result, has FLECKS OF TOILET PAPER ALL OVER HER ASS. She must have had quite a blow out. Momma Bear tries removing it...with a BRUSH...but those flecks aren't going anywhere. She finally has to get out the vacuum cleaner to rid Baby Bear's bum of that pesky TP. Are you kidding me?

Kailey has never asked me about sticky TP down under. Never. And the fact that she was cackling while she asked me (bear, er, bare bummed) clued me in to her little joke. So now I hate Charmin for putting crappy ideas into my kids' heads. Don't I have enough problems already?

Gag Me

Most, if not all, of us have those gross little habits that we'd rather keep to ourselves...you nose pickers, zit poppers, booger eaters, belly button diggers, and toe-jam harvesters know who you are. There's some twisted sense of gratification that comes from the engagement of these habits. And some some of us don't care at all. My sixth grade math teacher used to sit at his desk and dig earwax out of his ear with his car keys, oblivious to the twenty horror-stricken, open-mouthed eleven year-olds staring at him. I can't tell you how many times I've passed someone in the car mining for nose-gold, as though their cars were an impenetrable refuge, impervious to the eyes of casual passers-by. Some people are blessed with an amazing lack of self-consciousness. Their blessing is our curse.

Kailey is bordering on developing a nasty habit that we need to nip in the bud, pronto. Her habit? Tonsil digging. No, I've never heard of it either until I witnessed it with my own eyes. Kailey's tonsils look healthy. They're not swollen or infected, but they are filled with this white, cakey, chunky, disgusting crap. And I don't know if it's just food that gets trapped there or whether her tonsils are secreting the junk, but regardless of the source, it's gross. Kailey's favorite pastime has become grabbing a handful of Q-tips and digging that crap out of her tonsils. I can't watch her do it. It activates my gag reflex and makes me want to puke. And I can't understand how she doesn't make herself hurl.

Now don't be mistaken. Kailey isn't merely scraping the stuff off the surface of her tonsils...SHE IS DIGGING IT OUT FROM UNDER AND BEHIND THEIR VARIOUS FOLDS. And when she digs out a particularly large chunk of crap, she brandishes it like an Olympic medal. "Look what I got, Daddy!" she gushes as she waves a Q-tip with a dime-sized chunk of tonsil-jam in my face. Then I run for the john.

We've got to put a stop to this. Healthy or not, those tonsils have to go. We need to get her into the doctor to see if there isn't something she can do about it. In the meantime, I would be perfectly happy, even proud, if Kailey moved on to a more normal disgusting habit, like nose-picking.

Table Manners

Our family dinner time is a casualty of my and Diane's (mostly my) abnormal work schedule. At most we sit down to dinner together as a family three nights a week, and that's a stretch. And I blame any inadequacy of table manners on this disturbing yet unavoidable trend. Even so, Diane and I are doing our best to teach our girls appropriate table behavior, and to some it might seem we're fighting a losing battle.

Now I'm not sure how this happened, but our dining room set seems to have this mystical power over the girls' digestive systems. Or perhaps it's merely the relaxing nature of family dinner time that loosens their bowels. Or maybe they just like taking advantage of that hard wooden surface resting against their butt cheeks. Regardless of the reason, it seems like dinner time has become synonymous with gastrointestinal relief time. It got so bad that I finally had to make a decree: "If you girls have to fart, leave the room!" Well that backfired as well (hee hee) because even more disruptive than table-toots are two giggling girls frequently rushing into the den to make their gaseous deposits.

The other night it all came to a head and I was forced to amend my decree: "If you have to fart, don't! Just hold it in until after dinner!" That's what I do, and I don't think it's too much to ask of my girls.

We proceeded with dinner, and all was going well when Kyra tapped me on the shoulder. "Daddy, may I please be excused?" I was impressed by her manners, but was also puzzled because her plate was nearly full.

"Why? You're not done eating, are you?"

"No," she leaned in and whispered, "I have to fart."

At least she asked politely. That's half the battle.

Another Fleet-ing Moment?

Hopefully...and hopefully not.

Kyra has been complaining of stomach pains the past couple of weeks. Combine that with the acid reflux that she regularly experiences and refers to as "heart pain", and it hasn't been a very fun time. We took her into the doctor Wednesday morning where we were informed that she could feel another "blockage" in Kyra's tummy. Yes, I said another. Not good news. Diane then took Kyra to get an X-ray of her stomach to see the extent of the back-up.

The first blockage happened a couple of years ago, and it was bad. So bad that Kyra was throwing up, getting dehydrated and not pooping at all. After several calls to the pediatrician, one of her nurses finally called us back with instructions. Diane was at work and I was the poor sap to receive her sadistic marching orders. "Yes, we're going to have you go ahead and give her a Fleet Home Enema and we'll see if that clears her out." Her delivery was monotone and matter of fact, as though she were telling me to do something as simple as showering, shaving, or clipping my toenails. I didn't even know what a Fleet Home Enema was.

"...a wha...what was that again?" I stammered.

"A Fleet. Home. Enema."

That's what I thought she said. "And can I get this at Walgreen's?"

"Yes."

And do you do house calls?

There are some things that you should never, ever have to do to your child. The Fleet Home Enema is one of those things. There are also life situations that reveal a depth of love that you never thought you could experience, a depth of love that empowers you to do things you never thought you could do, things like changing disgusting diapers, rinsing out puke-filled sheets, and giving Fleet Home Enemas. I took my bowel-bound 4 year-old to Walgreen's and picked up the treatment in the seemingly harmless green box. We returned home where I read the instructions, one thousand times.

When I felt sufficiently informed (notice I didn't say "comfortable"), I gathered Krya into the bathroom and gave her the lowdown. "OK Sweetie, this is going to help you go potty." I walked her through the procedure and told her that she was going to feel a lot of pressure and that she was going to want to poop. Really bad. "We're going to wait one minute before pooping," I said. "The longer it stays in, the more effective it will be and the more the poop will come out." Or so I thought.

At this point, if I were Kyra I'd be running for the hills. I thought that she would start to throw a tantrum, but she had no idea what I was saying to her, no frame of reference to let her know that the poop chute was a one-way exit only. She trusted me and simply replied with an "OK Daddy", and I felt terrible about the rude awakening she was about to experience.

I applied the enema and she freaked. It was the worst I have ever felt as a father because I was causing my child this discomfort. She screamed the whole time, but allowed me to empty the bottle and then sat on the toilet for that whole minute before letting loose. She was a complete trooper (a pooper-trooper, if you will) and though I felt horrible about inflicting this torture on my child, I felt equally proud of her.

The enema, however, didn't even scratch the surface of the behemoth that dwelt inside of her intestines. We had to do another enema, and when that didn't work, we had to delve into the realm of prescription stool softeners before Kyra was finally able to pass the obstruction. "Get the poop out" became our daily mantra where we encouraged Kyra to sit on the potty longer than her normal ten seconds. "Otherwise we'll have to go to the store to get another home en-e-ma." Talk about motivation to take a crap. Kyra would do well to take a page out her old man's manual of bowel movement etiquette: grab your book or the sports page and have a seat for some quality throne-time.

We have yet to hear back from the pediatrician on the results of the X-ray. She ran through possible treatment options where the #1 priority was getting Kyra cleaned out. She only mentioned using Merilax, an over-the-counter laxative, in that process, but in the back of my mind I have this strange feeling that we'll be getting a call from the nurse suggesting a parallel home-treatment.

I originally thought that the makers of the Fleet Home Enema merely had a good sense of humor branding their product "Fleet" which means "swift", or "to pass quickly" if you use the term "fleeting", because, really, that's what you need to do, pass quickly. But I did a little research and found out that C. B. Fleet was a man who built a bowel-cleansing empire! Talk about destiny. At any rate, all of us want this situation to pass quickly, with or without the home enema.

Revenge, Montezuma-Style

We had Thai for dinner tonight, and I really need to use the facilities right now. The problem is that each of our two bathroom's bathtubs are currently occupied by little girls playing with various toys and supposedly washing their bodies. So while I sit here and suffer, writing furiously in a vain attempt to take my mind off of the attack storming the sphincter gates, the girls are splish-splashing and having the time of their lives. If they don't hurry up, there'll be a whole 'nother kind of splish-splashing going on.

Then it occurred to me, "Just go...they do it to you ALL THE TIME!"

Yeah, they do, don't they.

It's true. Whenever I'm in the bathroom getting ready, one of the girls will come storming in and, in one fluid motion, the lid goes up, the pants hit the floor, and they plop down on the pot.

"Why don't you go use the other bathroom? You know, the one that I'm not in?"

"But Daaa-aad, I like this bathroom."

"You're not going to poop, are you?"

"No, I don't think so."

Fart noises echo in pot.

"OK, maybe I do need to go poop."

I then let out an exasperated cry and flee for my life. It happens all the time and it doesn't matter which daughter. They are both equally oblivious.

So maybe tonight I'll teach them a little lesson in bathroom etiquette. See how they like it when their old man comes in during bath-time and takes a Thai-laden dump mere inches away from where they're bathing. Perhaps after tonight the other bathroom won't look so bad.

Oops. Gotta go.

Weird Science

This is Kailey's science project. It's been hanging on the wall of her classroom for about a month, ripening. I think it finally repulsed her teacher enough for her to urge Kailey to take it home. I now share it with you, dear reader, before plugging my nose and dumping it into the trash.



Any questions?

Oh, and my friend Brandt also sent me this solution to my book light crisis.



Yes, those are night vision goggles. Thanks, my friend, but these babies might fall into the realm of "overkill". Besides, I'd probably need to see a chiropractor after using them.