WARNING: the word "poop" appears frequently.

I went back to work yesterday for the first time in a week-ish, due to a flu situation at my house. If there was an I Hate Throwing Up fan page on Facebook, I would be a charter member. I was nervous to head in after so much time on the couch and in bed, but it turned out great and I ended up staying after class and chatting with Amory and Jill, who work at Vega, about the bizarre displays of etiquette displayed by some of our students. They aren't downright evil or anything, but just nutty enough to make you scratch your head and wonder what they are like away from the studio, in real life. Examples: scrunching up your face and telling the front desk person how much you hate one of our classes (except that the front desk person was the teacher of that very same class), or insisting that last week, Breakdance was on Monday when really it was on Tuesday and it's always on Tuesdays and has been since May(no kidding - INSISTING), or changing the instructor's choreography to make it "better", or interrupting two teachers discussing class by wedging yourself in the middle of them, directly in front of one teacher's face and cutting off the other with your back. There are a few more, but I think you get the drift.

It's easy to go on and on about the audacity of such people, simply because 98% of our students are so wonderful and are downright good humans. They compliment us, they have good manners, they try hard to do new things, they cheer for each other and they bring their friends to a place that makes them proud. We all have so much fun working there because of all of those people. And we DO sit around and talk about all that goodness, we do. But that's why the other behavior is so SHOCKING in comparison. We're spoiled. So we have to have a therapy session and hash it out sometimes. I usually never ever mention things like that on this blog, just in case someone from Vega reads it and thinks I demonstrate open season on anyone and everyone on the internet. Not the case at all. I keep Vega separate and sacred, even when someone threatens to sue me for discrimination because an instructor did not pick them at the end of class to perform the routine for the rest of the group in order to demonstrate what he was looking for out of the choreography (true story). Chances are, though, if you read this and you go to Vega, you are in the 98% and know full well what those two percenters are like. They shock you, too.

Anyway, I was intending to teach and head straight home after class to avoid a relapse of sickness, but got waylaid by this fascinating conversation instead. After a while, I thought to myself that I hadn't heard from Joe since my class was over. I tried his phone - dead. Hmmm. I wonder if he needs me, I thought. Oliver was so dreadfully sick this past week, there was an episode at 4AM of barely being able to breathe, blue lips and fingernail beds and a rush to the ER... So I checked my email from my phone. The first one I saw said HOME ASAP, Oliver -

And that's all I saw. I grabbed my keys and told the girls I had to go and I would call them later. Heart racing, I ran to the car and threw myself into it and then pulled my email back up so I could write Joe back and tell him I was on my way. Then I saw two more emails, something about STAT, Target, and Oliver. Wait. What?

So then I actually READ the emails. This is what they said, in order:

1)HOME ASAP
"Hey Phone is dead we have to go to Target ASAP and Oliver has something he wants to tell you!!!!"

2)Stat
"Home STAT Oliver has something to tell you!!!!

3)OK we are waiting, hurry hurry
no text, just the subject.

So after reading all of these, I suddenly knew what it was all about and I felt a little silly about panicking and running out the door.

If you know Oliver's history with poop, you know that he has battled constipation since he was 18 months old. It has been heartbreaking at times, to watch him cry in pain during a necessary bodily function. He had one horrendous episode in particular that left him scarred for life, and now he won't even poop when it's NORMAL consistency. Like, ever. He holds it. And dances around. And cries. And wants to be held. And races to find a hard surface to sit upon so nothing will escape. Because to him, the sensation of needing to poop equals terrorizing agony. He doesn't know that it isn't going to hurt.


Try potty training THAT. He wears only underwear these days, as he refuses to pee anywhere but in the toilet, even if he did have a diaper on, so we're good in that department. If he wasn't scared of poop being painful, this would have been a no-brainer long ago. But I have a small child. You don't get freebies. So in order to get him to want to poop on the toilet we told him he would get a toy at the store if he did it. Nope. Weeks went by.

Finally, during one of his poop dance episodes, I am struggling to sit him on the toilet and encourage him and he is bawling and screaming and I am trying not to cry/yell/rip my hair out, and then...silence. He can't help himself, he just goes. In the toilet. And of course, it's pain free.

The hoots and hollers that erupted from my face probably alerted the neighbors that trouble was afoot in the gray house on the corner, but I didn't care. And off to Target we went, where he picked out a Bosch chainsaw. For kids. It's not a real chainsaw.

That was about a month ago. And he didn't poop in the toilet ever again. Apparently, the ease and convenience and cleanliness of doing his business in the toilet was not going to change his mind. That must have just been a fluke. A freak accident. Nope, I think I'll just not poop. I do not care for it. And the cycle began all over again. Begging, pleading, bribing. Tears. Nothing would convince my son that having to go poop was going to apply to him. I have even shed all dignity and let him watch me go. I have. He gets it. He knows we poop. He knows his cousin who is the same age poops in the toilet, and he has seen her do it. It doesn't bother him or make him afraid for our well being. He just doesn't choose to participate in this particular rite of passage. Ahem. So to speak.

And so, last night when I read Joe's emails, even though I knew in my heart that whatever poop was pooped was done so under duress and resistance, I didn't care. No one can walk around that long without GOING. It's just not right. So last night, when I careened around the corner and screeched to a halt in front of my house, I honked the car horn a few times. I jumped out of the car, ran into the house, but. Balls.

I was too late. They were in bed. Screw it, I thought. I burst into the bedroom, all smiles and hellos, and Oliver sat bolt upright in bed and threw his arms open wide and said, "I POOPED! In the TOILET! I get to go to Target!"

Hell, I wouldn't have cared if he had pooped in the tub or on my bed, as long as he pooped. So I scooped that kid up in his fleecey, rocket ship footie pajamas and said, "Well, then we'd better GO! Come on!"

And the three of us piled into the car and drove to Target, where we let him walk around in his pajamas, ride the escalator and pick out a tool kit that matches his chainsaw. He picked it up, and said we had to go pay for it, and he proudly held its handle and marched with his back straight and chin up, to the checkout line. The angel-me on my right shoulder prayed that he wouldn't announce the Target employee that he "POOPED ON THE TOILET!" The devil-me on my left shoulder slyly hoped that he would. Devil-Me lost.

And that's when I lost my mind and forgot I had an iPhone. I didn't even take a picture. But the mental picture I have in my mind will last forever. The entire time we conducted this quasi-illicit trip to Target past bedtime, I was grinning from ear to ear, and I am pretty sure that I hiccuped and, in a flash, my heart came up through my chest, out my mouth and flew to kiss the top of Oliver's head and then back in again, to resume it's job of happily beating and keeping me alive.

This morning, he made a beeline for his tool kit and tinkered with all the pieces for quite some time. After a while he hopped off the couch and came to let me know that he was all done. With what, I asked. I made you a house, he said.

You guys, he made me a house.