Tag Archives: poop

How does a blind mom handle a puky and poopy day?

Since this is a milestone blog, my 100th blog, what better to write about than puke and poop?

Disclaimer, you may not want to continue reading if you have a weak stomach.

I have spent the last two days, and nights, dealing with puke and poop.  While I was scrubbing the poop off of the toilet seat, edge of the tub, and the bathroom floor yesterday, I laughed out loud at myself.  Only I would laugh and think, “Wow, this is going to make an awesome blog post!”

I chose my words carefully as I titled this post, “How does a blind mom handle a puky and poopy day?”

I’ll tell you how?  I literally, “HANDLE,” it.  Yes, quite literally, that’s the only way to know if you’ve got all of it up.

Let’s begin with Thursday afternoon.  As I prepared dinner, Jackson ran past the kitchen, ” I have to go poopoo!”  So what?  He announces every time he runs to relieve himself.  Only this time, instead of hearing the toilet flushing and the sink running, I hear the bath water get turned on.  I make my way to see what’s going on to find Jackson in the tub scrubbing his bottom with soap.  “I poop mama, and I wipe myself, and washing my butt.”  Ok, that’s great, takes care of the bath I was going to have to handle later.  I left him to cleaning himself, picked up his pants and tossed them on the bathroom counter for the time being while I had to check the pasta.  A few minutes later, I returned to check on him and turn the water off.  It still smelled awful in there.  Then… I realized why.

Checking to see if there was still poop floating in the toilet, I found it.  The smeers on the toilet seat.  Then I noticed the mile long drapery of toilet paper so commonly found in houses with toddlers, and as I began rolling the roll back up, my fingers stuck to the paper, and I found it again.  He was too adorable to be grosed out by.  He’d tried wiping himself, but never tore the paper off the roll.  Then… I found it again… when I pulled his underpants out from his sweats and felt the nice lump in the fabric.  There it was.  We haven’t had one of these in months. Poop in the underpants.  Those underpants went straight to the trash outside.  I washed my hands with soap, grabbed the bleach spray, and an old rag, and proceeded to scrub the toilet.

Now let’s move along to 4:00am Friday morning.  All night long Marley had whined and whimpered that her tummy was hurting.  All of a sudden she flew out of my bed, which she’s allowed to sleep in when daddy’s at work, yelling, “I have to throw up!”  If you are just starting to follow my blog, than you don’t know that vomit has been a pretty frequent visitor in our home.  So frequent, that my daughter knows to run to the toilet, trash can, or best of all requests for a throw up bowl to keep next to her when she’s not feeling well.  After that first explosion was over, I rubbed some essential oils on her tummy.  I’m not much into western medicine by the way.  My poor baby whaled as I cradled her in my lap.  I knew exactly how she felt, because that’s how I’d felt the night before.  There is a painful stomach bug loose in our house. Suddenly, she jerked off my lap and before reaching the toilet vomitted again on the floor.  Great… time to wake up, and clean up.

For the next 24 hours, I went through a lot of towels, bleach spray, hand soap, and the kids went through a lot of clothes.  One after the other, that stomach bug was making it’s way out of my babies out both ends.  To ensure that I got it all, I had to really, “handle,” the problem by feeling around in order to make sure there is no mess left behind.  Are those new chips and cracks in that toilet seat, or is that poop?  How far did the vomit splatter that time.  Oh great, I didn’t catch it all in the bowl.  Hurray!  It’s 1:00am and there’s vomit in my bed.

Thank goodness I don’t have a weak stomach, and thank goodness everyone is starting to feel better.  I am crossing my fingers that all goes well tonight.

Cheers to a restful night, to us one and all!

 

The “Touchy” Topic of Poop

I have to tell you that the dialog gets a whole lot more descriptive amongst my blind mommy friends.  I was the first one out of us to have a baby, so I never really had anyone to go to with questions about what non visual techniques other blind parents used.  Back then I wasn’t aware of a blind parent list serve or a blind parents group on Facebook.  I guess you could say I was sort of in the dark on this one.  So once my friends started having babies and the topic of changing diapers came up, it was quite refreshing finding out that I am not the only one who also gets creative.
Diaper Dialog
Q.  How do you change a diaper when you can’t see?
A.  Just like I do everything else, by using non-visual techniques.  I rely on my other senses along with the vision that I do have.  Obviously, I don’t use my sense of taste.  I can hear if the baby is peeing while I’m changing the diaper.  I can smell if there is anything odd about the pee or poop.  I am not afraid to use my sense of touch to make sure that it all got clean.
Q.  Have you ever gotten pee or poop on yourself?
A.  What parent hasn’t gotten pee or poop on themselves?  That simply just comes with the territory of being a parent.  Although, I have to admit that there have been a few times that my husband has informed me that I got poo on the wall, or light switch, or wipe warmer.
Q.  How do you know if your baby has a diaper rash?
A.  Once again it’s that lovely sense of touch that I turn to.  There’s nothing wrong with touching your baby.  It’s a proven fact that skin to skin contact stimulates cognitive and emotional development in babies.  A butt with a diaper rash feels very different from a butt without a diaper rash.  It also doesn’t hurt to use a soothing diaper rash cream even if there isn’t one.
Q.  Often, you need to pay attention to details like consistency and color, especially once you’re baby is eating solids.  How do you tell the difference?
A.  Ladies and gentlemen, I say it again.  I am not afraid to use my sense of touch.  you can usually tell the difference in texture and consistency while wiping.  There have been a few times that I have had to use a wipe to inspect the poop.  As for color, I can tell if it’s light or dark, but wouldn’t be able to describe if it were actually green or orange.  Yesterday, my husband told me that my son’s poop was blue.  Well, he did eat a few blueberries the day before
 Meet Jackson. He is probably the most mild tempered baby in the world.  The only times he cries is if he’s hungry or if his big sister beats up on him.  Now that he is crawling, he is getting into everything and putting all sorts of things into his mouth. Until recently, Jackson has never had a diaper rash.  Since Saturday we have had a new Jackson in our house.  A Jackson that cries all the time and is pooping 7 times a day and is now suffering from his first diaper rash.  Jackson is giving me lots of practice in using my non-visual techniques.  It is because of him that I am sharing with you on the “touchy” topic of poop.