...She did what?

From down the hallway I hear my loving husband, the father of my children call out:
"She crapped a banana."

"She did what?" I question, with a note of horror in my voice.

"You heard me. She crapped a big banana."

I go into the bathroom to see what the heck he is talking about. I peer into the white porcelain throne that my daughter is perched on; my little girl beams up at me with her dazzling white smile and says, "Look mama, I pooped a banana!" Indeed, there is a plantain shaped bolus of fecal matter floating just below the water's surface.

I am utterly mortified at this point, yet at the same time trying not to start laughing hysterically.

Yes. This is the actual conversation that took place this evening as B.J. and I got ready to put The Peanut to bed. And, no, this is not a totally out-of-the-ordinary getting-ready-for-bed conversation. I wish it weren't, but it is.

A brief history of poop:

The Peanut was born almost a full month early, tiny, angry, squalling, and completely against eating-anything. As a result, she was jaundiced, chronically dehydrated, and lost a lot of weight (which is saying something, as she was only 5lbs. 12oz. at birth). She hated eating, it was an hourly battle, we measured what she ate in CC's (until she was a few months old). It is a fact: When you don't eat, you don't poop. End of story.

Continue on to the recent past: She still hates eating. The child exists on air, I swear (why is it that I can't quit shoveling food into my face, and I can't get her to put anything in her mouth? God definitely has a good sense of humor, or irony, if nothing else).

As a result of her hatred of food, she eats a fairly limited diet--mainly white, starchy foods, cheese and dairy. Oh, yeah, and applesauce. All of these foods are highly binding, in a colon-plugged-up-like-the-hoover-damn kind of way. Needless to say, Peanut is chronically constipated. Always has been. This kid never crapped more than a few hard, dried out rabbit pellet sized turds at a time, and sometimes only once a week. It was horrible.

If it wasn't already obvious, our lives revolve around poop. (Now, I know you can die in peace, knowing that our household is so obsessed with bowel movements.) People who don't poop are extremely edgy, angry, and in a generally Genghis Khan type of mood all the time. I don't know about you, but we don't enjoy picnicking with Genghis Khan on PMS [Christian name: Peanut], so we strive toward getting Peanut to poop so she will be the lovely, adorable, girl I know she is (instead of the murderous rage-inducing mini-tyrant she likes to pretend she is).

For the longest time Peanut was on prescription laxatives. For a Loonnnng time. From the age of about 18-20 months (I forget, isn't that terrible?) until about age 4 she's been on the following high dosage (would make a brick have a b.m.) laxatives: Lactulose, Miralax, and various pre-G.I. surgery type laxatives.

Eew.

Anything and everything we tried to get our child to poop. Most folks could get their kids to eat some greens, or other high-fiber foods and get past the non-poopage issue. Not our little Peanut.

Now back to the present. We've been working with a special Chinese massage study called Quigong. It works to alleviate some Autistic symptoms in kids, and works to fix their bowels. In the case of Peanut, it was a total success in the B.M. department; our little pooper now drops the kiddos off at the pool daily--without any medication. This is like party time in our household. A la Kool and the Gang: Let's celebrate good times, come on! No more icky laxatives for our little girl. The only down-side to it is that Peanut still thinks pooping is going to be this horrendously traumatic event (--can you imagine not having a b.m. for a week or more, and then finally having one? The sheer diameter of the things that would exit her body make me shudder to think of them). I can't blame her for being anxious. So, we still have poop drama.

Most evenings go like this: Peanut gets her jammies on, goes pee, and then we have her sit and relax so that she can 'go.' This is usually followed by screaming, protesting, and the ever present "I DON'T HAVE TO GO POOP!!!!!!!!" We still have her 'try.' (she used to scream "I can't!" but I couldn't stand hearing a 4 year old tell me "I can't" so we've retrained her to say "I tried")

It is usually 3-10 minutes of her complaining, whining, and/or screaming. Then it comes: "Moooomm, I went POOP!!!". And we see she has indeed gone poop, and gone A LOT.

So, you've already read tonight's conversation. I'm sure that someday, in retrospect, we're all going to laugh and laugh about this little 'poop' issue. But right now, with the exception of tonight's ultra-descriptive b.m. most nights it is an uphill battle.

Nobody ever told me that becoming a parent would involve a degree in poop. The things I talk about with my (mom) girlfriends; the things I publish in cyberspace. If someone had told me, before becoming a parent, I'd write a blog entry on crap (no pun intended) without hesitation or embarrassment I would have told them they were full of it. Oh, how things change.