For Laurel, when you’re older.
Your first preschool classroom photo, the one where you look like someone just ate your puppy. You’ll wonder about it later, thinking that you were a sad little girl. Maybe you’ll tell your friends that you were denied candy, and your mom made you wear dresses, that you were mercilessly taunted by your peers for having such crazy hair or something else dreadful. I just want you to know why your face is so sad in this photo. This milestone photo. Your first classroom photo, age 3.
Your poor little body is so packed with poop that I’m afraid you might burst. You are so constipated, more bound up than anyone I’ve ever seen. Every 5 minutes you clench with the urge to push, so afraid of the pain that you’d rather postpone it forever. You haven’t pooped in 8 days.
Ten hours after this photo is taken, with the help of a glycerin suppository and a relentless tummy massage by your amazingly patient mother, you birth a poop the size of my fist. And then you snuggle up to me and pass out. And we spend the next day eating fruit, drinking pear juice, and going through a lot of diapers. We laugh and snuggle, you even let me comb your crazy hair without fighting me.
You weren’t a sad kid. Not neglected or victimized. You LOVE wearing dresses, and your hair is really very adorable. Your peers live in fear of you, because you are a little Napoleon. And your mom and dad love you. Even with the impending shit storm that follows an 8-day hiatus from pooping, your mom and dad totally and completely adore you.
I hear ya, sister. I, too, have had the poo-poo pushing blues. It’s not fun, but moms are great at making you feel better. I make sure to drink lots of water and juice, go easy on the cheese, and snack on raisins, prunes and grapes following such an ordeal.
And, no, my mom is not laughing at you. She is laughing because the story was delivered so cleverly.
I remember a little girl, 4 or 5 perhaps, who also had the
poop disease. This little girl would let it peek out for
days in a row, just enough to soil her little size 3 undies,
and she would hide all the undies behind the shelves under
the sink. I kept buying undies, the dryer ate them. Finally
when we moved and long after the poop disease, I looked in
behind the shelves under the sink and there they were. A dozen little size 3 pooped on undies. Maybe Laurel can add
mommy’s pooping disease to her baby diary.