Guest Blogger:Christine of The Aums Mama"What Goes in Must come Out"

My guest today is Christine of The Aums. She's witty and very funny, and she's a fellow Gemini (i.e. instantaneously loveable like yours truly - ahem). Christine lives in Santa Cruz, Californina with her husband and 4 kids (aka her Aumies) ages 7, 5, 3, and 2. Christine's family are known as The Aums because they included the Sanskrit spelling of 'om' in all of their names. How cool is that?

Christine has just made the switch from Blogger to Wordpress (it's getting lonely over here... is that tumbleweed?), and I have to say the new space looks mighty fine. She'll have her About page and others up soon. Be sure to visit today and then check back often for updates.

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Let's get to know Christine better:

Favourite word?

ApparentLY adverbs ending in -ly. I tend to say 'honestly' 'seriously' 'definitely' 'totally' A LOT. ActualLY, I do love to say ALOHA and I wouldn't be @TheAumsMama if I didn't say AUM.

Favourite time of day?

I am both a morning person and night owl, which leaves very little time for sleep in between...so my favorite time of day is NAPTIME...when I actually get one.

Favourite treat?

My favorite treat is ME time. I especially love it when I get to be home and my husband and kids are out doing something fun.

Favourite family outing?

My favorite family outing is one on one time with one of my Aumies. We spend so much time together as a family, that I try to schedule regular dates with each one and give them my full attention. They take the lead and I am less stressed not keeping track of 4 kids at once.

Favourite comfort food?

Definitely toast. Extra comforting if it's sourdough and buttered all the way to the edges! Extra extra comforting if it's served with Mexican hot chocolate!

 

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What Goes in Must come Out

by Christine, aka The Aums Mama

A couple of week’s ago, my daughter swallowed a marble.

I was standing maybe 3 feet away, with my back turned, when I heard her make a loud spitting sound. My first reaction was to tell her to keep her saliva in her mouth, but when I saw her wide-eyed face, I immediately connected the dots. 

She’s three going on four. Toys in the mouth are not something I worry about any more. I don’t even worry about it with my 2 year old!

I have four kids and this is the first time anything like this has ever happened. You’d think I’d know what to do.

So this is what I did:

I FREAKED OUT!

Actually, I freaked out on purpose. I wanted my daughter to see me in all my worked up glory to hopefully teach her a lesson. I cried along with her and did this shallow breathing thing and kept looking at her and shaking my head. I know I freaked her out, but I think it worked.

I hope.

So…what goes in must come out right?

I immediately tweeted the situation and received some much needed support as well as something I didn’t need or want: confirmation that yes, I would have to check her bowel movements until the marble made its re-entry into the world.

So we gave her the lowdown. From now on she would have to use the little potty so that we wouldn’t have to fish her poop out of the toilet. It made her laugh to know that we somehow had to look for the marble in her poop, and we did indeed all share a good laugh.

She had a BM in the next 24 hours and let me tell you…I was ready! I was game for getting this “mommy milestone” out of the way, under my belt, on my blog!

While she was doing her business, I had a moment of brilliance, ran to the kitchen and found some plastic take-out cutlery. A fork and knife combo! I was determined to cut those turds up with manners, so as to diminish the weird wild animal feeling I had of going through my offspring’s poop.

But mere seconds before I began slicing and dicing, my husband stopped me with, “What are you doing?!”

“What do you think I’m doing? I’m gonna dissect her poop!”

“You don’t do it like that. Let me handle this.”

“Gladly!”

“You put it in a plastic bag and squish the bag til you feel the marble.”

“Ooooohhhhh…” I nodded my head slowly.

When did he become an authority on finding crap in crap? That’s what I wanna know.

So, in case this ever happens to you…here are some fun facts:

• It took 3 poops and nearly 4 days for that sucker to come out!
• My husband squished 3 bags of poop! (There’s something I never thought I’d write.)
• My daughter didn’t feel it coming out.
• It went in silver and came out black!

Our loved ones told us, “You have to save it! It’s a family memory! An heirloom!”

So we did.

We even named it The Black Pearl, and there’s been talk of having it set into some kind of jewelry and giving it to her when she turns 18.

So what do you think? This ever happen to you? If the “squishy poop bag technique” helps even one parent out there, this post will have served a purpose.