The misadventures of the poo train

Dear Js,

So I haven’t figured out how to get you to poo. But I did somewhat figure out how to get you to agree to laxatives. You kept delaying, saying I’ll make it after dinner. I’ll go tomorrow. I’ll do it after bath time. Then it came to ultimatums. If you don’t make it by 7 pm, we’ll have to help you. Then it came to yes and yes options: would you like mama or daddy to do it. “I don’t want anyone to do it.” If you don’t want us to do it, we’ll have to take you to the doctor. Do you want us to do it or the doctor? More crying. “I want to try again by myself on the potty.” You tried everything to weasel out of it. “I want Julie to do it.” She can’t. She’s a baby. “I want Kimi to do it.” She can’t. She has no hands.

I knew that one problem was that the benefit was too abstract, and the pain was too far away in the future for you to appreciate. (Like contraception vs pregnancy, vaccine vs flu, quitting smoking vs lung cancer.) What you saw in the present was the “pain” of pooping. So I figured I had to bring the benefit to the present (reward substitution). I also knew I needed a powerful demonstration to help you appreciate the situation. I needed you to believe that waiting was not what you really wanted to do.

I grabbed a plastic bag from the dinner table. It had some things from your earlier trip to the store with mama. I said this is your stomach. I picked random objects from the living room and put them in, one by one. This is what happens when you don’t make kaka. Do you want to wait one day? This is what happens. I shoved some potatoes into the bag. It stretched. You stopped crying and watched silently. Are you sure you want to wait one more day? I put a tube of puffs in. This is what happens. I put a box of wipes in. Do you want to feel it? You shook your head. There’s too much kaka in there. It’s getting bigger. I crammed in a toy piano. Then a jar. Then a box of crayons. Then… POW. All over the floor.

You looked at me, not sure if you should cry. “Why did the bag break?” Because there were too many things in it. You cried. Mama said, “I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do. Come here. I’m going to hug you. Your tummy is not going to break. Look at me. It’s okay. Don’t look at daddy. Look at me. Daddy is just trying to explain…”

Then I said, “Okay, do you want me to do it, or mama?” You cried. I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” You said, “Mama.” That was the breakthrough. Instead of trying to cheat, you finally committed to letting someone do it. It was downhill from there.

Was it the right approach? I don’t know. I had to bring it to the present. How else could I bring the benefits and consequences, and the sense of urgency to the present? Okay, maybe I scared you a little. But I didn’t lie and say the bogeyman will get you. I didn’t use physical force. I didn’t scream or use authority. I don’t think I scarred you psychologically…

Robert Carver is awesome. He’s so good I can’t read too much in one sitting. The layers in each story go deep, I find myself re-reading or sitting and thinking. Or like the other day when I read, “Nobody Said Anything.” I stopped because it made me sad. The story still haunts me a week later. The day after I read it, I needed to learn more about Carver. I discovered what critics proclaimed was his best work. The stories were in the book I bought, but more than halfway in. It would take a few weeks before I got to them. “Should I skip ahead?” I wasn’t sure. The book was organized by The Library of America to represent his growth in his life as a writer. Mama said, “Don’t do it!” I decided not to. It would spoil the experience. I would cheat myself of the best part of enjoying any art, which is to see where the artist came from and what dragons he had to slay to get to where he is to produce his best work. I shared that interview about Gabriel Garcia Marquez (that I showed you last week) with mama. We talked about how he struggled to write at the end of his career. He would take a whole day to write one paragraph. And the next day he would toss it a way. Mama said she would have loved to see those discarded paragraphs.

As a dad, I don’t get as much excitement in my life. So books and stories like Carver’s have become a great escape. Stephen King led me to Carver. And now I see that they call Carver the American Chekhov. So I added 2 Chekhov books to my reading queue. What intrigued me about Chekhov is 1) if he’s the Russian Carver, I want everything he’s ever written, 2) He was a doctor by day and writer by night. He said, “Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress.” Up til now, every author I know who’s any good did nothing but write.

Back to Carver. I also learned that he wrote short stories by necessity. He was poor most his life. Early in his career, he worked multiple jobs to scrape by with his wife and two kids. He had to travel a lot. So I believe a few short stories he wrote was during his breaks while he was a janitor at a hospital. Like most writers, he never really “made it big” until later. And being poor, he never really got time to write until later, when he could finally afford a home, the kids were older, and he became sober. When they went through his belongings after he died of lung cancer, they found that he was getting ready to write a novel. When he was finally clean, at his peak and had time to write, he ran out of time to live.

Check out the 19-minute mark. And then the 21-minute mark. I can empathize with some of his pain. Everyone who tries to create anything eventually gets depressed if life keeps wrecking your plans. But the luxury I have that Carver didn’t was that he was poor. So when he finally got around to his desk at night, he was beat. Some nights, he managed to put ink on paper. Other nights, he picked up a bottle instead of a pen.

Mama’s business predicament. Read this and try to come up with your solution. Then compare with what I replied to her below (don’t cheat!):

“I don’t know why they pay me to come twice to their homes and don’t come to the free group on Monday. I think I’m either going to do it as a clinic for pay, less than a home visit, or charge for the group.

The situation is, mama’s clients have no problems paying for a home visit. Then they promise they’ll show up at the free group on Monday, but hardly any ever do. Why is that? How would you get them to show up?

My reply:

There could be many reasons:

1) It’s easier to have someone come to your home than to go out

2) They don’t have a problem urgent enough to break their schedule to go to group, or they don’t see enough benefit of group to go

But in all the reasons, money is probably not the top factor. On the contrary, money = commitment.

So one way you can change that is to call your support group a “clinic”, and charge for the visit just like doctors do. I.e, instead of saying “free breastfeeding support group”, where there is no pressure on the individual to show up, say something like, “I have clinic hours at ____ on Monday between 10am and 12pm. What time would you like me to schedule your appointment?” Or, “You and your baby are doing fine, but I’d like to see you for a follow up visit at clinic hours on Monday to make sure ___blablabla___. What time is good for you?”

Make them commit to an “appointment”, then follow up as if it were an appointment. E.g., the day before, “Hi, just wanted to remind you that you have an appointment tomorrow at 10.30am. See you and _name of baby_ there!”

Scheduling it as an appointment makes it more of a commitment that is harder to sneak out of. When they show up you can decide if you want to charge them or if you want to keep it free. From the outside it’ll still look like a breastfeeding support group, and many moms might still drop in at the same time and hang around. But to each mom, she should feel more committed to show up and more guilty if she skipped.

Mama has been getting about 2 clients per week. She says she feels like she’s making real money. I said you’ve always been making real money. It averages out to $1200 a month with just 2 visits a week. Not bad, right? Had you and Julie gone to daycare full time, mama’s whole salary would go to the bills and taxes. But this way, we’re up $1200 a month AND you get to be together.

Now, what’s important is for me to reveal where these 2 visits a week are coming from. Almost all of them are from one pediatrician’s office with 3 doctors. Up til now, only one or two docs have been referring patients. The doc who hasn’t referred any is the owner of the practice. She is more traditional. Instead of recommending mama’s breastfeeding help, she has been prescribing formula for more urgent cases. But for the first time, mama received a pleasant voice mail from her today. I got home from work early to take you two to the park and get dinner started. She went to visit the mom and baby. Tomorrow, she will be seeing her first premature baby.

Here’s why it works so well. Picture this. You see your doctor with a problem nursing your baby. Doctor says, we have a lactation consultant we highly recommend. All our patients who have seen her have come back happy and successful. Here’s her card. (If you remember, each card reads her name, and under that, “Lactation Consultant for [pediatrian’s office] Mamas.” Can you guess the acceptance rate from moms that come through the pediatricians? Yup: 100%. And price never comes up. Because when a doctor tells someone, “I can’t solve this problem but this is the specialist we trust and recommend” … everyone goes, “Okay.” Hardly anyone will second-guess or shop around. Why would you bother looking for someone other than who your doctor recommends? Would you dare go against your doctor’s recommendation to save a couple of bucks on a stranger who charges less? In fact, the sales choreography worked so well that one client thought she didn’t have to pay. She thought the visit from mama was an extension of the pediatrician’s services.

That’s the power of referrals. And that’s the power of referrals from a doctor. And that’s why it’s always a good idea to tap into the flow customers to an existing business that your clients already love and trust. In her usual way, mama is surprised that things are picking up. I said you shouldn’t be. You had 1 doctor referring patients to you at first. Now you have 3. In time, you’ll have referrals from the moms you’ve seen. And as the doctors get more positive feedback from their patients, they will be more excited to refer even more cases to you.

Best of all, this is a simple formula. All this comes from the one relationship with one pediatrician. What if you worked with two pediatricians? How about midwives? What works here will work there too. The principle is Other People’s Customers — find out who else is already serving your customers and meet them there.

Ugh drained. Girl, you hurt my feelings. I had you two while mama saw the premie baby. Everything was great until you got sleepy, Jules. We spent half an hour fighting. I said I’m your daddy, let me help you. But you kept crying and pushing and crawling away. This was the jackhammer cry too. You’re used to nursing and falling asleep next to mama. So even though I was your dad, you refused to settle. Your nose ran, your face was red and your hair was sweaty. Having my girl scream and push me away while I tried to help hurt. I started singing Amazing Grace. I tried to stay calm and remind myself that you’re just a baby. I let you run away. You screamed for mama but she didn’t come running. I scooped you back. You pushed my face away and slipped down. I picked you back up. As time went by your energy drained. Soon, I hugged you close and didn’t let you push me away. Then you accepted me and for the first time in 30 minutes you stopped crying to take a breath. Then you went back to crying. Then you took more calming breaths between cries. Finally, you started snoring. I turned to look at you through the mirror. Your drool ran behind my shoulder. I kept singing Amazing Grace. I don’t know why, but that’s the only song that works for both of us I guess. I needed it more than you did. Soon the only sound in the house was my bad singing and dots of your whimpering left over. I thanked your brother for being quiet. He was reading his Dinosaur A-Z book. He said “You’re welcome” and smiled. Then he made me read a few more books.

It’s mother’s day next week. Mama made me promise to make her a card. I don’t have much time alone with you guys to make a card, so today seemed like a good time. We used paper and crayon. I had you two draw all the things you liked. Then I drew arrows to caption what each thing was. Like “J’s right foot” or “Rain.” I folded it and hid it in my laptop bag. I’m saving it for next week.

This was another chance for me to think, why do I suck at giving gifts or writing cards? I remember when I was little. I wrote many cards that made my parents cry. I’d write them out of the blue, just because. I drew pictures. I remember picking my mom flowers from the weeds on the way back from school. I’d try to save their frail stems in my pocket or backpack even though they wilted quickly. I had to search my memories. I’m sure the reason is buried somewhere there under some scar tissue. I think the reason is betrayal. I did those things because I liked seeing my parents happy. Seeing them happy made me happy. But you have to be vulnerable to be happy. It means you open yourself to being hurt. So it hurt whenever my parents weren’t happy. Whenever I couldn’t do anything about it. Whenever they made me feel childish for trying. So I stopped trying. I stopped writing for them, I stopped drawing, I stopped talking about feelings. It was safer to not make an effort and risk getting a faceful of mud.

So in that sense having you guys as my family has forced me to change. And I think, the person you fall in love with is someone who can make you brave enough to love again.

And now to end this week’s poo adventure. After my dramatic demonstration, the next day you gave birth to a poo train the size of your arm. I ran over when I heard mama scream. “How did that come out of you?” You said, “I pushed it out the door.” No one knew because you did it quietly.

Curious conversations

At bedtime.
“Daddy, I want a hug.”
*hug*
“Now put me back into my bed.”

The next day:
“I want a long hug and a short kiss before I go to bed.”
I gave you a long hug. A few minutes later I said, “I love you.”
You pulled away and dropped your head into your tiger pillow.
“And a kiss.”
*kiss*

I showed you how to open the car with the remote. You know what each button is for. Open, close, trunk and alarm. We’ve tried each one. I let you hold my key when I take you to school. You like to help me find my car and unlock it. On the way to school…
“When I grow up I want a green key and a red car.”
OK.
“You will have a black key and a black car.”
OK.
“And I will show it to you.”
Mama asked later, “Will you show it to me too?”
“Mama I will show it to you too.”

We have you climb up and down your high chair at the dinner table now. As usual, you give us your commentary, “I’m going to climb down myself because I don’t have a seatbelt.”

On growing up:
“When I grow up I will be a daddy and old as you.”
“No, when you grow older I will grow older too.”

J as you jump off the couch: “I’m getting some gravity!”

This week in pictures

Put it in the box

Multipotty

Breakfast:

Scooting with mama

We are made of stars:

Bike

Bike fast

Is that my friend?

Dandelions are for eating

Superspeedy daddy

Lion walking brother speeding

Love,

Dad

P.S. My back hurts. Julie – you say, “MEIH! MEIH!” which means, “Put me down, give me your fingers and help me walk.” I can barely carry you anywhere before you corkscrew and slip down to your feet. Then you make me walk you everywhere.

P.P.S. We got your acceptance letter from Bing. But because we haven’t checked our mail for a week, we missed the deadline. Mama’s going to be there as soon as they open to fight for your spot. I hope you get in. You are bored with your school and we’ve been forcing you to go for months now.