Today was rough. It seems that’s all it is lately.

Rough.

The daily notes from the monkey’s teacher have not been good. He has completely stopped eating at school. Since he was assaulted by his previous teacher, he doesn’t want to eat, he doesn’t want to go to PE, to music therapy, to recess, or the cafeteria. So what do the teachers do? They have decided to not fight him. They simply let the other kids go while the monkey stays with the paraprofessional working on different activities in the classroom.

And sometimes it sucks. Maybe for my own personal hopes, it sucks more. For example, last week was kinder graduation picture day. And I was so excited. I just love school pictures. And the monkey didn’t want to go. The teacher tried, the para tried, but he wouldn’t budge. So no pictures. And that sucked.

But today, the teacher’s note was different. The monkey didn’t want to go anywhere as usual, but he was also crying.

And that part caught my eye.

Crying?

The teacher asked if he had slept okay. She asked if he had been sick? Was he constipated?

And since the monkey doesn’t speak, it’s all a guessing game. What could it be?

This evening he was jumping on his trampoline like he always does, then he simply stops, comes inside the house, and goes to the corner. My husband is just following him around to see if we can get clues of what’s wrong. And the money starts crying. Out of the blue.  And we couldn’t figure out why. We kept asking him, but to no avail.

My husband decides to shower him since the monkey loves to shower. Then my husband calls for me. He thinks the teacher may be right, he is constipated.

As I come over, I can see the monkey is now in pain, a lot of pain. And he is touching his stomach as well as his behind. I give him some pediatric  stool softener but I know this will take some time for it to take effect.

We’ve been here before. The monkey has always had trouble with his bowel movements. He either has pretty bad diarrhea or he’s constipated. It’s like we are never in the middle, we are rarely just okay.

We noticed he was getting in more pain. So I took matters into my own hands.

And reader beware – it’s not going to get pretty.

We gave him a saline enema for toddlers.

And it was terrible. As my husband was holding him down, I was giving him the enema. And the monkey was screaming in pain. And as I am injecting this inside of him, he manages to look into my eyes and is screaming in terror. Heartbreaking.

When we were done,  he was still crying. But his cries we’re not just about pain, but also because he was hurt and confused. And it’s just so difficult to explain this to him.

We took him back to the shower, to try to calm him down. And he starts screaming in pain again, folding his legs tightly together. I start calling him. Letting him know he is going to be ok. Hopefully soothing him. And just like that, he starts pooping. They were rough, hard, large, pieces. And all I could think about is of course he was crying, these were tough to pass.

And after that, we washed him up, I fully cleaned the shower, while my husband dried and clothes him. Then the monkey, well he went straight to sleep.

As my husband and I are looking at ourselves, he tells me “That was tough”.

I did go thru my internal emotions of how this is my fault. How did I let this slip? I know better. I should have kept up with his bowel schedule like I usually do. If I would have done this, he wouldn’t have been in so much pain.

And then I have to remind myself that he’s okay now. He’s safe. Sound asleep.

So yeah today was rough. But now we are ready for the next hurdle. Because that’s what we as parents are to do. Get back up and try again.

So here’s to tomorrow being a better day!