Happy St. Patricks Day!

Happy St. Patricks Day!! Today we will adorn ourselves in various shades of green, serve up plates of warm corned beef and cabbage and wash it down with pitchers of green beer all in celebration of....ummm...wow this is embarrassing, but I really have no clue what the whole idea behind St. Patricks Day is. All I know is I don't want to get pinched and to be on the lookout for a little green man. But nonetheless, we are celebrating today and not just in honor of this Irish holiday. Today is also in need of recognition as it is the third day in a row that Camryn has woke up with a clean pull-up. And maybe I should clarify what I mean by clean. It still weighs in at no less than 5 pounds,completely soaked with urine, BUT there is no number 2, no B.M., plain and simple there is no poop!!! And around here, that is reason to parrrrrtaaayyy!
At seven years old, Camryn is completely potty trained for all practical purposes. If you had asked me last year if we would ever see this day, I wouldn't have hesitated to sigh " I really don't think so." She had the pee-pee part down, for the most part,but the pooping part...not so much. It was nothing for me to throw away five to six pairs of panties away a week because she had pooped in them and you couldn't pay me enough money to stand around and scrub poop out of tiny panties, you just couldn't. So I'd make a trip to Target about twice a month to pick up another bag of brightly colored underwear knowing full well they would be in the trash within a week. But, that's how we roll around here. And you know, as awful as it was to clean up a seven year old un cooperative child who has pooped in their pants, it was nowhere near as bad as changing the pullup of a seven year old child who has not only filled it with pee during the night, but also poop.  And not only was it disgusting, it was nearly impossible to get her clean because we had to change her like you change a baby and she refused to open her legs. She is extremely strong and she can hold those legs together like no child I've ever seen and if that isn't bad enough she also kicks, which now makes it not only totally gross, but dangerous as well. I used to be able to do it relatively easily, all things considered, by laying her on the floor, grabbing her ankles with one hand, lifting her legs up and cleaning her with my free hand. But as she has gotten bigger, so have her ankles and I can no longer get both of them in one hand, which adds a new degree of difficulty. And this was the way we would start almost every morning since we have had children, so for nine years now. Mason and Natalie, like most kids do, eventually learned to use the potty and by age three, were completely independent when it came to toileting. But Cams was a different story. Not only was she delayed for obvious reasons, she also does not have the freedom of using the bathroom in the middle of the night as her sisters do, because for safety reasons, she has a babygate at her door keeping her in her room and unable to get to the toilet if needed. And putting a little potty in her room is not an option because one of Camryns favorite things to do, which is common for children with Autsim, is to pour liquids out of containers, and I think you can see where I'm going with this. So, she has to wear a pullup at night, and if she has to pee or poop, she just goes in her pullup and we change her in the morning. And to make things even more interesting, Cams, like many Autistic children, has some gastrointestinal issues which make her have really loose bowels sometimes, so basically it's just a huge mess and God forbid you don't get to her within minutes of it happening because it's nothing for her to stick her hand in it, do a little tribal painting on herself with it, and then it's on the walls and the gate and the bed and ohhhhh, it's DISGUSTING!!! And then we strip her down, the bed down, put her in the bath, clean her, scrub down the room, wash the sheets, clean her fingernails because, oh yeah, it's under the fingernails and then hose ourselves down. You know, just a typical American morning right? lol And this was a regular happening around here right up until about eight months ago. Thank God we have not had an episode like that in months and if I have to go the rest of my life without scraping poop out from underneath little nails, that will be just fine with me! Now let me just stop here and say I apologize if you find this offensive or disgusting, but this is the reality of our life. And anyone who has kids knows that you may start out referring to bathroom happenings as "voiding" and "bowel movements" but by kid number three come on, it's pee and poop, plain and simple! So anyway, today is a day of celebration and hopefully this pattern will continue. Camryn is still not able to wipe herself when she uses the bathroom, which means Brad and I as well as her teachers will have to continue to do that and while not my favorite thing to do I can handle it. And although I know we are not out of the woods yet, I am really hoping we are coming to the end of changing poopy diapers. I mean good God it's been nine years people, nine years!!! So today, when you sit down to your dinner of corned beef, boiled potatoes and green beer, think not only of St.Patrick and whatever it was that he did to get a holiday named after him, but also remember why I am celebrating. On second thought, maybe you should wait unitl after dinner! lol ;)