Barnabas Monkeypants

(Note: This post includes childish information regarding bowel movements. Parental guidance is suggested.)

For the months leading up to our wedding, Kristen and I were on the Atkins diet. For me, it worked wonderfully, and I lost more than 30 pounds. But like most diets, behind that flattened stomach lay three months of terror and horror that we try never to talk about.

You see, while the diet was effective, the way that we ate wreaked havoc on our bodies and minds. Unable to each starch, every meal (regardless of how much meat and cheese we stuffed into our mouths) ended with us feeling full but unsatisfied. You’d still have the urge to eat, but there would be no room.

You craved sugars — and while they said those cravings would abate, they never did. Ever.

And you were completely and utterly insane. One Saturday, Kristen and I were going for a walk and we went into a grocery store to get something to drink. Kristen chose some fruity beverage that was loaded with carbohydrates. I was furious — and had a near temper tantrum — as Kristen taunted me as she slowly drank that cool, tasty beverage.

Needless to say, as soon as we landed in Los Angeles, we stopped off at an In-n-Out Burger and devoured a burger and fries (with the bun, people, with the bun!).

For me, however, the worst side effect of the diet was that it constipated me something fierce. Eating all that protein made me have only two bowel movements a week — on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. As someone who is used to a more frequent (but no less regular) toilet time, dropping down to twice a week was horrible. By Friday morning, I was cranky and irritable (more so than my usual Atkins irritability), and I dreamed of Friday afternoon not because the weekend was right around the corner but because my body would soon have that light and airy feeling of post-evacuation.

So why am I telling you this? Well, on Thursday morning, Henry had a bowel movement. And then… nothing since. Four long days with nary a poop. This is, suffice to say, unprecedented.

Our son has always been a frequent pooper. (I’ve written about often, but you can read more about it here, here, and here.) When the books said that he should be down to once or twice a day, he was still at four or five; when they said that we shouldn’t be surprised if he went an entire day without going, we’d be lucky if he hadn’t gone three times. But lately, he had been a once-a-day fellow (usually right around 6:30 in the morning, which is good for everyone involved; right after we all wake up and before we get him dressed for the day).

That is until Thursday when, after his regular morning constitutional, he stopped going completely. Nothing Friday. Nothing Saturday. And by Sunday afternoon, he was, as Kristen likes to call him when he’s really crabby, a “hot mess”. His naps were non-existent. He groaned for a half-hour straight. We knew we had to do something.

So we pumped his legs. He loved this and got a good laugh, but it wasn’t effective. We went to the grocery store and bought some pureed prunes. No go. (And have you ever smelled baby food prunes? My gag reflex was kicking in high gear.) We were so desperate, Kristen wanted us to go and get a baby suppository! (I put my foot down with that one.)

And last night was even worse. After struggling to get to sleep, he woke up at 12:30 and didn’t get back to bed until nearly 2:00 in the morning. (I’d rock him back to sleep, walk away, and 3 minutes later he’d be up again.)

Now this lack of pooping is a normal thing. Not for Henry, mind you, but for other babies. It’s not out of the question for babies his age to go a week between having a “business meeting”. But neither we nor Henry were used to this, so when it finally happened to us (and, mind you, it was only 4 days), nobody really knew what to do and everyone involved was unhappy.

I’m pretty confident that the poop will happen soon (and God help us all when it does). And if not, I’ll just go out and get more prunes.

(I just got news from Kristen — who’s home from work with a bad case of food poisoning. Henry has pooped, so much so that he had to immediately take a bath. I think the nanny’s in shock. But at least he got everything out of his system.)

This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Barnabas, Poop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.