Nggggghhh! NGGGGHHHAAA!!!*

Note to future Sam:

If you are reading this, I just want to say that I'm very, very sorry that I talked about your pooping habits in a public forum. Please don't bring this up with your therapist.

Love, Mom

So. Constipation. It's the issue du jour around our house. Up till this morning, Sam had not pooped in four days, and even his two meagre poops today were hard, stingy, rabbit-pellety little things. I know that four days isn't a lot for some babies, but for Sam, accustomed to gleefully sending forth fountains -- nay, Catherine wheels -- of poo on a daily (and on some days, twice or even thrice daily) basis, four days is not right.

My boy is bunged up good, and he's not happy about it. And when Sam's not happy, nobody's happy.

I feel so bad for the little guy. We did the math yesterday and first realized that his delivery schedule was a bit off. Understandable, we figured, since he recently had the epiphany that solid food is important because it sustains human life. As a result, he's been going at the cereals and fruits and vegetables like a born trencherman. So we dosed him with some diluted prune juice (with a syringe, believe it or not, because Sam thinks that bottles and sippy cups are chew toys) and waited for the excitement. (I never noticed till just now that "excitement" is only two letters away from "excrement.")

None was forthcoming; however, we did have an increasingly uncomfortable and cranky baby on our hands, one who drove Rusty to sleep on the sofa at around midnight. Sam finally dropped off to sleep, as did I, only to be awoken at 5 am on the dot by an extremely active baby. This was quite unlike him, because Sam normally likes to lie abed like a pampered Victorian lady till about 10 am or so. I discovered the source of his agitation when I changed his diaper: a hard little brown marble that must have hurt like bejeezus to pass. While I personally would have been offended and disheartened at having so little to show for my labours, Sam was in pretty good spirits and, after a couple of readings of Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs and Goodnight Moon, fell back asleep.

Fast-forward four hours. Sam wakes up crying and clearly very uncomfortable. I check his diaper. Nada. After a quick consultation with the trusty ol' internet, here's how we spend the next two hours:

• feeding him UN-diluted prune juice (again with a syringe)
• massaging his lower belly
• bicycling his legs
• assisting him in standing and bouncing
• encouraging him to rock back and forth on his hands and knees

At one point partway through these machinations, I realized that Nature had gotten the wrong number and was calling me instead. When I got back from the bathroom, I didn't have the heart to tell Sam. It would have seemed like gloating.

Finally... finally... after many tears and bouts of red-faced pushing on Sam's part, and much cheerleading and sympathy grunting on my part, we had a victory. A round, brown victory. A mingy victory, yes, but a victory nonetheless. And now that this inaugural mom experience is behind me, you can add one more job skill to my c.v., after cook, entertainment coordinator, toy assembly supervisor, safety inspector, sanitation engineer, laundress, and janitor:

Poo wrangler.

*That was my approximation of a typical straining-to-poo noise. YMMV.