My son is my hero (or: Apologies to Johnny Cash)

Disclaimer: Someday The Boy will hate me for writing about this, except that he will be so cool that he will find it in his heart to forgive me instead. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyhow.

He turns four tomorrow. We’re having a party. This is the first year the attendees will be his friends instead of ours. I’m unbelievably pumped for it. Even when I ‘partied,’ I didn’t like parties, but I can’t wait for this one. It has a Batman theme!

Anyhow, that’s not what this is about. Nor is it about the extremely cool painting he came home with this week, above. It’s going immediately into a frame and onto my office wall.

No, the coolest thing about him is how cool he is under fire.

Here’s the part he’ll need to forgive me for later: He’s been constipated pretty much his entire four years so far. He drops a deuce about as often as I change my t-shirt; roughly once a week. And by then, it’s an ordeal. I won’t go into details, for his sake and yours. But it’s ghastly. It’s like passing an orange that weighs as much as a softball. Usually 2-4 times over a couple of days. Then it’s back to nothing for another swear-to-God week.

Four years of this!!

And we’ve been dealing with it pretty much constantly, but with the expectation that eventually it would just get better. You know, like magic. We put Fairy Dust in his milk every morning; turns out that particular Fairy Dust is not supposed to go into milk and we’ve probably been making the problem worse instead of better.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

So I finally put my foot down and made a nuisance of out myself and got the go-ahead to go see a specialist. We got a little pamphlet in the mail telling us that a rectal exam would be part of the exam, and if we didn’t think we could prepare our little one(s) for it we should seek help elsewhere, presumably the local witch-doctor.

So this morning I sat The Boy down and laid it all out. We’re going to see the poo doctor. He or she is going to make it easy for you to poo every day without it hurting. Would you like that?

“…Yes…”

Cool. The doctor’s going to poke you and prod you and look at you all over. She’s gonna look at your ears (and I tickled his ear) and your eyeballs (I drew circles in front of his with my forefinger), your tummy (poke!), your belly button (giggles), your legs (more giggles) and your bottom. She’s gonna take a good look at your bottom but you have to try mot to laugh if she tickles you. And I’m going to be right there the whole time, a lot.

Well, he responded in the affirmative at all the right paces but really, you never know how a kid is going to react until you’re on-scene and the kid has made his mind how he’s going to deal with things.

Today my kid’s decision was to be the coolest guy since James Dean made that safe-driving PSA. He was unflappable. He complied with everything that was asked of him, he answered questions when asked and he did it all without complaint. And I’m talking up to having his blood drawn and (I’m sorry, son) a ‘digital’ exam that did not involve a computer. God love him, he didn’t enjoy it, but he didn’t even complain about it either.

He even entertained his fellow outpatients in the blood-drawing waiting room by repeatedly climbing up on his chair, thrusting his arms out, palms open and extended and making a loud “Bwoooosh!” noise (ala Iron Man) before jumping off the chair as far across the waiting room as he could. The sick folks seemed to eat it right up so I let him go for it till they called us in.

I couldn’t stand to watch them draw his blood, even though he was on my lap, but he was cool as a cucumber. He actually watched every step. I woulda fainted dead away. I usually do.

When The Missus got home, the first thing he said was a cheery, “I went to the poop doctor today!”

She goes, “Was it fun?”

Yeah, he asserted. Unbelievable. We just shook our heads at each other as he turned back to his WALL-E coloring book on the kitchen floor, humming and talking to himself.

The trip totally didn’t scar him emotionally for life! Mission accomplished!! I feel, as they used to say, ten foot tall and bulletproof right at this moment.

As an extra-added-value bonus, because I am feeling so generous tonight, the opening riff of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” from the waiting room before the exam: