So, my mother-in-law had been watching my two year old son for a few days when she called on Saturday morning in a bit of a panic because Mario was having such trouble going poop.  He had not gone since Tuesday night and he had just gone for my mother-in-law (Patty) but he had strained and cried and bled a little afterwards so Patty expressed concern that he may have a hemorrhoid or that “his plumbing may be off.”  Now, let me say for the record that many people are probably thinking at this point “oh, those mother-in-laws and their constant worry and probing and…” but I have been blessed 1000x over with Patty and she is a far cry from a stereotypical storybook mother-in-law.  If anyone worries too much, it is moi (thanks to my mom!) so I take Patty’s concerns to heart.  Anyway, Mario and I had gone to Tuttle Mall on Tuesday night, and he had cried right before he pooped, too.  I figured it was because of a little diaper rash or because he knew since he pooped we would have to leave the playland where he was proceeding to tackle every boy from age 2 to 5 (by the way, shouldn’t there be a rule on this Earth that if a kid plays non-stop for an hour in a playland and a mom has to watch that entire time, that kid MUST go to sleep on the way home so mom can enjoy some down time?).  So, Patty and I decided that I should pick him up and head to Urgent Care to get him checked out.  Mind you, I have my four and a half year old daughter (she gets very irritated if I say she is merely “four years old” and not “four and a half”) with us, too, which always lends to such fun times at the doctor’s office, much less Urgent Care. 

We walk into the Urgent Care center greeted by young kids wearing masks, coughing up lungs, and looking like zombies who would rather be back in their caves.  Great, if Mario and Maria are not sick now, they certainly will be by Monday.  We sign Mario in and get called back immediately (thank god)!  Mario goes into ballistic mode as soon as he sees medical staff because he remembers his times at Nationwide Childrens’ Hospital when he had his surgery a year ago.  The staff were wonderful but he got cut and he got knocked out, and he did not like one minute of it.  Therefore, he will make it known to all medical staff that he does not wish to be near any of them ever again.  So, there is the nurse trying to get his temperature and he is flailing those arms and kicking those legs and not letting her within a two foot radius of his tiny little body.  She finally allowed me to put the thermometer under his arm and she gave up on his blood pressure, which probably would have measured at 200/130 with the way he was screaming his lungs out.  We get to go to a room (I am quite sure we beat out others whose kids were acting civil and humane) and there was a golden nugget on the counter – a tv with a movie in it.  Ahhhh….  It was Happy Feet.  This calmed Mario down nearly immediately and Maria and I looked at each other with thankful grins. 

When Mario started to squirm a little because of the wait, Maria stated “It’s ok, Mario, the doctor is just going to check on you – he will not hurt you.”  She is his biggest protector and if she thought the doctor would possibly hurt her brother, the doctor would be taken down before he got within ten feet of him.  She is the muscle of the family after all.  We sat and watched Happy Feet and all was calm until that door opened and in walked a doctor.  Mario clung to me like a spider monkey pleading “no, mommy, no thank you!” The doctor tried to play games with him and make Mario smile but it was a worthless cause and the doctor soon realized that acting in a stealth fashion would be much more productive.  He did a check-over, including a look at his bottom, and then ordered an x-ray.  Yet another fun time with Mario kicking and screaming and yelling “no, thank you, let’s go mommy!”.  Everyone got a complete kick out of how polite Mario is when he does not want something.  We eventually got through that and headed back to the room with a sucker to watch Happy Feet. 

When we got back I had to thank Maria over and over for being such a good girl and a great help to me with Mario.  She turns into my “second husband” at times when my “first husband” is not around.  She makes sure we have Mario’s blankie and his binkie, she tells me if she thinks Mario needs something, she asks questions about what the doctor said.   She is gonna be a heckuva mom someday.  The doctor comes back in the room about a half hour later and informs me that Mario does not have a urinary tract infection or a yeast infection but he does have a lot of stool in his body ready to come out.  He shows me an x-ray, from which all I can detect are Mario’s ribs.  He runs his finger across certain areas and confirms that all of  “that grey and shaded area” is stool.  Therefore, Mario gets a stool softener to help him get it out of his system.  “I expect that he will have a blowout sometime before Monday”  What things we get to look forward to after having babies!  The doctor then proceeds to ask me if I have a flashlight.  I respond “of course” and he directs me to wake up at 2 am, go to Mario’s room, pull off his diaper, and shine the light in his rectum to look for worms.  “You will see little white creatures that look almost like rice crawling inside his rectum and they may be on his diaper, too. You need to really open him up and look in there in case they are burrowing.”  I looked at him with his serious expression and calm demeanor and responded “OK, that sounds awesome and fun and full of chuckles and laughs – I am all over it!”  He squinted his brows in confusion obviously thinking I was insane but then my little hubby over on the chair gave a giggle and whispered “Mom, you are so silly.” 

With that, we threw on our coats, picked up two popsicles, and headed to the car happy to head down south to our home and our flashlights.