Is it a sex blog? A mommy blog? A bitch & moan blog? Um, . . . yeah. This is my place to be totally honest. In my real life, I feel like I'm always lying to somebody about something. Here, I am totally honest. Brutally so. However, no matter what bad things I say about my kids, I adore them and would never ever really, say, sell them on Ebay. The husband, often referred to as Spousehole, is another story. Oh yeah - if you are under 18 (or if you are my husband), please leave now.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

I'm A Poopy Failure

This "Poop Post" has been floating around in my head (ewww!) for a while. I debated posting it so soon after FADKOG's poop post. The difference is that hers was light-hearted and amusing. Mine is just pathetic.

My life is all about poop. My children's, my cats', and even now my neighbor's. I'm tired of poop.

My daughter is still not potty-trained. She will be three in less than a week. She can't even wear Pull-Ups, because they don't make them small enough. The smallest ones just fall right off of her, no matter how we adjust them. She's just incredibly tiny for her age. So she is still in diapers and I feel like a total failure as a mother. I didn't feel as bad when her brother wasn't potty-trained at three, because he was a boy and is autistic. Both boys and autistics tend to "get" toileting later than girls and NT (neurotypical) kids. But I feel like a failure with her, especially with my mother and mother-in-law both emphasizing how their daughters were potty-trained well before age TWO.

Spousehole has been neglecting his litter box duties (hee hee - she said "doody"), so I am having to be responsible for cat poo too. And we've got three of the little poop machines.

Boy has been experiencing severe toileting regression issues, i.e., he poops his pants. This is no ordinary poop either. You think you have smelled smelly poop? You haven't smelled anything yet. His smells like mothballs and the stench lingers horribly. If you don't thoroughly wash his poopy undies and pants before putting them in the washer, the whole load (she said load) reeks of mothball poop. I have washed some loads three times before the smell comes out. With all his poopy laundry taking precedence, I have fallen horribly behind (she said "behind") in non-poop laundry. He poops in his underpants and the result is that he is the only one with a reliable supply of clean underwear. Where is the logic in that?

Apparently, other parents of autistic children have reported this mothball-stinking-poop problem. It may be related to an overpopulation in the gut of clostridium. Apparently, the chemical that makes mothballs stink can be produced by clostridium acting on poorly digested casein, the protein in milk. We already have Boy on a casein-free diet, but we know he's been getting some here and there lately. Some researchers have found improvement in poop problems and behavior when autistic kids are put on vancomycin to cut down the clostridium population in the child's gut. Some parents report good success with probiotics. We are trying the probiotics thing right now. Getting them in him is no mean feat - he won't chew chewables and he just knows when we mix things with his food or beverages. He has a doctor appointment soon for his 7 year checkup and we're going to talk to his doc about trying vancomycin and possibly Nystatin. Normally I'm not big on taking antibiotics and antifungals randomly like that, but anything that might help Boy is worth a shot to me.

Boy's behavior has been abysmal lately. He refuses every request we make of him, even if it is something he WANTS to do. He is just being stubborn. Boy just outright refuses to do his work at school. He will be defiant all morning, but then when the teacher tells him he can't have his lunch until he finishes his work, he will do the entire morning's work in just a couple minutes. He's smart and he knows the lessons, he's just being defiant and stubborn. It's horribly frustrating for me and for his teachers. His teacher thinks his pooping his pants is just another act of defiance and she very well may be right.

I babysit my neighbor's 4-year-old a couple days a week. After dealing with my poopy kids all the time, it's kind of nice to have a kid around who can handle his own toileting. Until yesterday. He too pooped his pants (but at least he had the decency to cry about it). Spousehole was home and we flipped for who would get to clean up the latest poopy child in our house. I called heads and won the toss, Spousehole had to clean neighbor boy! I think neighbor boy was completely baffled by the coin toss. He had this "what the heck kind of parents are you people?" look on his face. It was priceless.

Bitching and moaning time is now officially over. Return to your usual amusements. Thank you.

13 comments:

sandy shoes said...

Ugh. Poop. Double-ugh, neighbor kid poop. Somehow it's easier to take when it's your own kid; but that mothball poop, well. That may be in a class of its own. Interesting, that other parents of autistic kids say the same.

I don't know, attempting toilet training early would've stressed me out too much. My stance was: changing diapers doesn't bother me that much, and nobody's going to be wearing them to kindergarten in any case. The girls were each about 3.5 before they reliably used the "big potty," but it went really smoothly with very few accidents once they did.

DO NOT FEEL LIKE A FAILURE. She'll be ready when she's ready, that's all.

(Also, people who say their kids were trained well before two? I flat out don't believe them. Write it off as a mistaken memory. Kids simply don't have the muscle control or impulse control at that age.)

Michelle said...

Shit (hehe she said shit lol) my daughter was over 3 before she was fully potty trained!! Don't worry about it and do NOT feel like a failure. It will happen when it happens. ANd in the grand scheme of things, when she is 20...Who cares when she was trained....as long as she's not dumping in her pants then!! :)

Tara Tainton said...

Wow! That's a lot of poop! So far... I just have my own, the lover's and the cat's to deal with. ;)

Sugarmag said...

My daughter was potty trained at around 3 and a half (closer to 3 years 8 months), and I think that's pretty common. Being a mom is so hard! I hope you have less poop in your future.

Trueself said...

Oh well, poop happens. Sorry you're dealing with so much of it.

Hang in there.

Anonymous said...

I think people who have their kids trained before 2 are control freaks - speaking from experience. Not mine. My mother's. LOL

I don't think Boy's problem lately is regression and stubbornness. His father whacked him so hard he had bruises - and wasn't it for a bathroom issue? He's seen his sister slapped upside the head and screamed at for not eating. He may be defiant but it's reaction to what's going on at home with Spousehole. FWIW, that's like any other kid autistic or not.

Glad you won the toss!!!

Sailor said...

That's a lot of poop; sorry you're stuck with all that.

(wanders off to not have to deal with poop, thank goodness).

Polt said...

Oh. My. God.

I hate dealing with my OWN poop much less kiddie poop. And kitty poop! And somebody ELSE'S kiddie's poop!!!!

You have my deepest condolences! :)

HUGS...

Anonymous said...

I found it kind of funny that Spousehole had to clean up the shit. Serves him right for all the shit he dishes out!

Lady in red said...

if it is any comfort OJ had bowel problems right up until he was 10.(I think it had something to do with his underactive thyroid) It became a vicious circle. He would get constipated so that his poo would become dry and hard thus making it painful for him to pass. this meant that when he needed to go he would tense up and not go which then made it worse. I spent many hours in the bathroom with him trying to get him to go.
He then suffered from what our Dr called seepage. His bowels were so full all the time that when he ate it would force some of it to seep out. so he wasn't actually having a motion which resulted in him not knowing when he needed to go. But we all knew because of the distinct stench of what I described as old poo. Like you said if you washed his pants with anything else the whole wash stank of it. sometimes though it was just so bad that the only choice was throw them out.
I walked around with nappy sacks and spare pants in my bag for many years also keeping spares and nappy sacks in his sports bag at school. He had to take lactulose daily for several years to help him over come this problem.
he is now 17 and has had no problems for several years.

Vixen said...

Oh.

Oh my....

(((((You)))))))

I remember my daughter was potty learned by 16mo and I praised the gods. Then came my son.... And he mysteriously learned himself just short of his 3yr bday. But that was not before I tried everything to get him to. And NOTHING is worse than older child poo...the smell.

Again. ((((YOU)))))

Vixen said...

But. I want to add to the others...DO NOT FEEL LIKE A FAILURE!!!!

Love you Bunny!

Constance said...

my empathy, Bunny. you have a hard life with that...