What is worse than throw-up on the rug??

This is going to be a really long post. By the time it is over, half of you will be laughing your asses off, and the other half will be calling Social Services, convinced that I should not be a parent.

By the way, you might not want to be eating when you read this, just in case the title didn't clue you in.

So after the daycare debacle the other day that I posted about, things just got worse. When I went to pick him up that day, as soon as I opened the main doors, I could hear him screaming. We get home, and it is much of the same. He will not let me out of his sight, and the most minor of inconveniences throws him into a frenzy of throwing himself repeatedly on the floor and writhing around. He stays up until well past midnight, until he finally falls asleep from sheer exhaustion.

You have to understand how lucky I have been up to this point, to know the kind of helplessness that I feel. Both of my children started sleeping through the night, in their own beds, around 2 months of age. Throughout both of their lives, all I have had to do is plop them in their beds with kisses and hugs, and they both go right to sleep. I have been at a loss this week.

We tried rocking, we tried holding, we tried co-sleeping... nothing. We just had to let him wear himself completely out. I assure you, we wore completely out well before he did.

Marty and I even had the talk that night that we might need to really consider the fact that he might be mildly autistic. It is a thought that has been in the backs of our minds for awhile. The complete focus on cars, and no other toys, the headbanging when things are going wrong, the consistently late milestone meetings, the non-verbalness... etc. I realize that this is a pretty drastic change in routine, but the complete anger that does not seem to diminish, and in fact seems to be getting worse, made us think that maybe we needed to really talk about getting him tested.

Either that, or call a priest to perform an exorcism.

I was complaining to some of my wonderful online mommy friends about all of this and they suggested that I take him to the doctor and just see if he might have an ear infection or something physical that could be causing this horrid behavior.

Friday morning, I take him to school. For me, this was the worst morning yet. I went to get him out of the carseat, and before I could unsnap him, he grabbed my hand and clutched it in his own little, tiny, soft hands. He looked at me helplessly, that little lip poked out and his eyes already welling up with tears, and said, "onkeyobo megolp byebye?" I knew in Colby-speak, that meant, "Mama, I love you so much, why can't you see that?? All I want to do is to be with you, and you keep taking me here and they don't love me and they don't take care of me and I miss you and why can't I just be with you??"

I nearly got right back in the car, and drove home. Unfortunately, I don't really want to live in a box under the overpass. So, I took him in the school, and he started to cry in earnest.

I did get to talk to his morning teachers, and they told me that he does not cry alllll day. He cries a lot of the day. They said that anytime any of the other kids start crying, he starts in too, and his cry is usually so much louder and more upset that the first kids stops and just stares at Colby. They also said that he is very attached to Miss Sara, who is his actual teacher, whom I have not met. She works 9-4. They said that as long as Miss Sara is in the room, he is ok. They also said that Thursday, he woke up from a dead sleep screaming, as if he had a nightmare, and that Miss Sara took him on a tour of the entire daycare... parking lot, kitchen, all the bathrooms, etc. I love Miss Sara. I need to bake her a cake or something.

They also mentioned that he has not eaten at all while he is at the school. That he cries through lunchtime and throws his food on the floor. This is very, very unlike Colby. He is a pig. He eats more than his six year old sister on most occasions. Then I got to thinking, he really had not been eating much for me, either. With all the screaming and writhing, I really had not thought much about it.

I told them that Marty would be picking him up early. I decided right then and there to go ahead and make a doctor's appointment, and rule out something physical, before we called the priest / Early Intervention.

Marty went and picked him up about 3:00pm, and he was screaming when he got there.

We got him to the doctors office and he is in full fit-pitching mode. His screams are ear piercing and he is rolling on the floor flailing his limbs. And yet, the nurse still comes in and says, "So, what seems to be the problem with Mr. Colby?" with a big smile on her face.

Oh, you mean besides the fact that he seems rabid?

Dr. Rucker comes in, and checks his ears, nose and throat. She then palpatates his abdomen and says that she would like to send him over for some x-rays on his stomach.

Now, I am in full-panic mode. I am so upset and anxious, convinced that he has some rare (or not-so-rare, but still horrible) stomach disease. I made Marty go back with him for the x-ray. Generally, that is my domain, as the nurturer. Elizabeth had pneumonia many times as a baby, and I was always the parent to go do the x-rays. Not this time. It took them a while to get a clear film, because apparently when they say, "Please be still," there is a reason for that... and Colby wasn't really listening and obeying them. Still more flailing and kicking and screaming.

We go back to the doctors office to await the results. Colby has been screaming for a full hour now. They send us right back to the room. I think they are weary of hearing him, too.

Dr. Rucker comes in smiling and says, "Are you ready to hear the results?" We both nod, nervously.

"He is completely full of poop. His entire digestive tract is backed up."

You have GOT to be kidding me. The kid poops three times a day!

She gives us a prescription for Miralax, and tells us to couple that with Milk of Magnesia until his poop is very watery. She said that it is going to take a few days. She also gives a prescription for cold medicine because he has a runny nose, and she laughs when she says that she is giving us the one that has the biggest side affect of drowsiness. I think she saw how exhausted we were.

As we were checking out, and Colby is still screaming, and all of the staff is hurrying us along, I did turn to her and say, "Now, what time did you say you were coming over for dinner tonight??" and she laughed and said, "Gee, unfortunately, I have to work really, really late!!"

So we get home, and give him a dose of the miralax and a dose of the milk of magnesia, and a dose of the cold medicine... and after about thirty minutes, he stops screaming... and starts playing with his cars... quietly (!!!) in the floor. We kept waiting for poop, and nothing happened.

At 8:30, I went to bed and took him with me. We slept until around 6am, when Marty's alarms woke us up.

I gave him a second dose of Miralax, and MOM with his breakfast. And waited all morning. I kept changing diapers, expecting to see poop, and not seeing any. At noon, I gave him dose three of the MOM.

By this point, he has started with the screaming and the writhing again, so I gave him some more of the cold medicine, hoping he would go down for a nap. No such luck.

He got quiet around three that afternoon, and I took that opportunity to lay on the couch with Elizabeth. Colby was playing in the floor on his toddler couch, and I had the babygate up so that he couldn't get out of the living room, so I closed my eyes.

I was laying there listening to My Little Pony and thinking about getting up to start more laundry, when Elizabeth said, "Hey mom? I think Colby pooped."... and a few seconds later, she said, "Boy, does he stink!"

Let me interrupt myself here to say that most of you probably know what is coming. I must be an idiot, because I did not have a clue. It is something that is probably covered in Parenting for Dummies, but I seem to have misplaced my copy.

I was letting Colby run around in a diaper and a tee shirt.

About five seconds after Elizabeth's proclamation that her brother stunk, the smell hit me. I opened my eyes to see Colby standing beside me, his face red with concentration. And massive amounts of runny, stinky, gloopy poop running down his legs.

I jumped of the couch and grabbed him up and tore down the hall like the hounds of hell were at my feet, trying to ignore the splatting sounds following me. I held him over the toilet for just a minute, simply because I was at a loss of what to do.

I yelled at Elizabeth to please bring me the wipes, and tried to ignore her gagging and yelling, "This is disgusting!! There is poop everywhere!! YUCK!!!"

I wiped him down as best I could and then threw him in the shower. I got him clean, and put him in his room with the baby gate in the doorway and ordered Elizabeth to go entertain him. I was then completely alone to survey the damage.

Apparently, he was sitting on his toddler couch when it started, because that is where the most of the damage was. Then there were gloopy poopy footprints across the OFF WHITE (what the fuck was I thinking???) rug all the way to the couch. Elizabeth had her Friday Night Living Room campout the night before, and we had not picked up her bedding from that, so the foot prints and excess poop were on three blankets, her pillow, and her stuffed dog. He had leaned against the (scotchguarded, thank you, God) couch, and the coffee table. Then there were the random splats from me hauling him across the living room, down the hall, and into the bathroom. Not to mention the tub and the toilet seat.

I wanted to just sit down and cry. Instead I called Marty at work and told him that I hated him and that I was filing for divorce on Monday. Through his laughter, he said that if I wanted, he would try to find someone to come in for a couple of hours so that he could come and help me clean up... I replied, "Gee, thanks, we will just sit here and look at it until you get here. No, stay at work. You are going to need a job to pay me child support when the divorce goes through."

It took me a good hour to get the house clean and sanitized.

Colby pooped about five more times before dinner.

And for dinner, he ate ten chicken nuggets, a whole package of instant macaroni and cheese, 8 peanut butter crackers, a bowl of applesauce, a package of raisins, and about 10 cheeto puffs. All in one sitting.

And he has been an angel all weekend. Except for the sleeping thing. Now that he feels better, he wants to play all night.

We will see how this week goes at daycare!!