Oh S**T!

Well, I have discovered over the past few days that I will not be in the delivery room when my daughters give birth.  I have spent the last 3 days coaching Charlie as he gave birth to a poop, and I really do not want to experience any of my children being in that kind of pain again -- even if the prize is a grandchild!

Poor Charlie has been constipated for almost a week now -- we have emphatically blamed too much Easter candy!  We have been pumping him full of all the usual "pipe cleaners":

with no success ...  It is hard to reason with a 5 year old as he sits crying on the potty while asking for food because he is hungry!  When I got to the point that I was saying, "No, you can not have any more food until you let your poop out", I realized it was time to get serious.

Seriously, how pathetic is this?

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can ...

Today, we got serious -- yep, you really can't qualify for  parent-of-the-year status until you have inserted an inch long suppository into your child's butt!  Usually Joy and I argue over who has to take the kids to baseball practice, or who is cleaning up the dinner dishes ... let's just say I should have gone with rock not paper in today's battle!!

Even after the suppository, we still had to cajole Charlie into trying again.  I really don't know how he held it in as long as he did, clearly, we were up against a Professional Poop Holder -- that kid has some serious sphincter strength! 

I logged over 5 hours sitting on the floor with Charlie's feet on my shoulders, chanting, "You can do it Charlie ... OK, deep breath, now Puuuuush ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... ".  I doubt that the excitement of seeing a piece of poop "crowning" is as thrilling as seeing a baby's head push its way out.  I do understand that I am not going to love that little piece of poop forever and celebrate its milestones as the years go by, but by God, I sure did feel a sense of pride when it finally arrived!

The poop prize!!  Yeah, more candy -- clearly we haven't learned our lesson!