Flying Crapola

Today, Mandy decided she wanted to make a run over the mountain and go to Dubois. Dual agenda there as she figured maybe she could find someone in the Social Security office to give her some papers she needs to fill out so she can file an appeal on an edict she got from that office about 2 weeks ago with respect to Maya's account there for the SSI. Anyone here ever filed for SSI for a child with a disability? If so, how much headache and hassle did you have with Social Security? They -and their explanations of things -are quite the mind-boggling things to try and figure out, for sure!

So anyway, that's what we did and yes, she did luck out in that there was someone there in the office who gave her the forms she needed.

After that, we headed off to the mall to do a little shopping -a little bit of visiting too. The lady who is the manager at one of the jewelry stores there is an old friend of mine, of the family -formerly from here. Actually, I grew up next door to her and even though she is four years younger than me, we've always been very good, close friends. So, we stopped by the jewelry store and I spent about 10-15 minutes chatting with her then. Always good to see Carm again!

One of the good things about our conversation today was the things she told me about her youngest brother, "Uncle Mike" as my kids and I always refer to him -and the chemo treatments he's been getting for about two months or so now. She said that the tests they have done on him recently show that the chemo has reduced the tumors anywhere from 25 to 50 percent and that, as you can imagine, is very good news to hear! I forget now what type of cancer he has -I think liver and maybe lung too -not sure there but anyway, Mikie is like a baby brother to me -ten years younger than me so I've known him since they brought him home from the hospital and he's a heck of a good "kid" too! Yes, even though Mikie will be 54 next month, he's still a "kid" to me! So, although the chemo does really wear him out, she said he told her last night that it doesn't seem to be hitting him quit as hard as it was in the beginning. Just such a relief to hear that things are going fairly well for him though.

Mandy and the kids and I had lunch at the Mall at the Valley Dairy Restaurant there and when we finished, I took Maya with me and headed down to the J.C. Penny's store. Boy, what a chore that was to try to look at clothes and keep an eye on Maya too, especially since she was being a tad on the rambunctious side for me. Every two-three minutes, she was asking me "Where's Mommy? We have to find Mommy!" And, I was telling her over and over that Mommy and Kurtis would be down there very shortly.

However, when Mandy did come down to the Pennys store, we must have been around the corner in the back -away from the entrance - so I didn't see her nor did I hear Kurtis and she didn't hear Maya either. Although many of the customers in the store did hear Maya and my conversations with her as I was struggling to get her to stay beside me -no disappearing acts, ya know! And lord knows, a four-five year old can seem to make themselves invisible in a heartbeat in a store like that! She kept going into the clothing racks -the displays that were like a four-pronged effect and she'd get into the middle there -totally surrounded by the clothes and was very difficult then to reach in and get her to come out beside me then! Needless to say, most of our conversations were me asking her if she wanted Grammy to be "happy or sad" (sometimes I substituted "mad" in place of the "sad" too) and when we ask her that, she almost always will tell us she wants us to be "happy" so then I'd tell her then she'd best get out from wherever she was hiding or else! At one point, she tried to tell me she couldn't come out because she was "in the elevator" which is a really absurd answer on her part, considering she is terrified of elevators, as a general rule! Go figure, huh?

Because we made the mistake in the car as we pulled into the mall parking lot of mentioning we were going to the mall, she asked us "What's the mall?" Ok, you try explaining that in words a child her age can comprehend! That term, "mall" came back to haunt me over and over again down in the Pennys store as she kept telling me we not only had to go find h er Mommy but we had to go to the mall and I would tell her that we are already at the mall to which she would respond that "No! We not at the mall. We at the store!" Yes, that's true, but we were also at the mall and she couldn't grasp that they are both there -together, ya know!

But anyway, I managed to find four tops and a pair of the "king kong" size jeans for myself -all on sale too, no less! (And good sales prices too I must say, so I'm giving myself a pat on the back there too now!) From there, we went to a shoe store and I lucked out again and found two pair of shoes for myself plus a very nice handbag on sale at 50 percent off the sale prices -yay, yay! I love me some good sales prices like that! I bought the shoes and Mandy bought the purse for me as an early birthday present from the kids! Pretty good shopping day for me then, it was!

But tonight, life here was pretty hairy for about an hour with Maya. And it all harked back to the big problem we have been having, still are, with her concerning potty training. She's been ok for close to a year now with using the potty -very few reminders about this as long as it only involves -as she would put it - "Putting my water in there!" But poop? Well, things take a really bad turn as soon as we mention that subject to her.

See, the thing is here that she KNOWS, she understands when she has to poop but she flat out refuses to go near the commode to "put her poop" in there! She will go into the bathroom, undress, take her "unnywears" off and put a pull-up on -all by herself -and then she will relieve herself! Anytime we get an indicator that she needs to go sit on the potty, if we say one word to her about this, she goes into meltdown phase!

Tonight though, she had put a pull-up on and had gone in it and then, was coming to Mandy or to me -even to Katie -to ask us -anyone of us - to change her and we all were refusing to do that. Finally, after over an hour of this wrangling, Mandy took her back to the bathroom to change her and in the process of removing the pull-up from her, a little of the poop brushed off on to her leg and WOW, now there was a meltdown to end all!

It turns out, as we have now figured out, she is terrified of the poop! Fearful of getting any one her any place ya know! Well, when this happened tonight, she grabbed the pull-up -still fairly full, I might add -and flung it so some of the poop flew out and bounced on the bathroom wall! Yeah, the bathroom walls that Mandy had just painted not two weeks ago and tonight, she ended up having to scrub them down to remove the traces of the flying poop!

Since this all happened when Mandy was going to bathe her and get her ready for bed, as punishment for throwing the loaded package, Mandy told her that she could not go out and get in my bed and fall asleep to watching cartoons and she couldn't go up to her room and get in her princess bed there either -sans a tv and the cartoons too there -but instead, since babies only poop in their diapers or pull-ups, and since she (Maya) refuses to use the potty, then she must be a baby so therefore, she had to sleep in the crib in her room tonight then! WOW -what a war erupted on her hearing that too!

Needless to say, there was a lot of crying -screaming actually -emanating from her room for quite a while before she finally konked out for the night!

So here's my question for you -my faithful readers here -how does one try to get her over this fear of poop? Anyone else ever had a kid that was afraid of the stuff like that?

If you have any suggestions how we can, shall we say, "initiate" her into not being afriad if a little dab of it gets on her leg or finger or wherever -that will enable her then to not be afraid to "Put her poop in the potty" we will, I can assure you, be eternally grateful and forever in your debt if you can shed any light on this problem!

How's that for a crappy topic for the night?