1.24.2006

Snow in Tokyo

The girls were happy about the snow we had on Saturday. There was enough to build snowmen. L went to kindergarten in the morning and played in the snow with his friends. He got out half an hour early as the kindergarten was worried about driving the kids home in the snow. The girls went to various friends' houses for the day so L was the only child home at lunchtime.

After hot udon noodles for lunch, S and L played word games in S's futon for a while. L asked for hot cocoa but suddenly started complaining of great abdominal pain before he could drink it. I made him go sit on the toilet for a while with no results. He cried and moaned that he didn't want to die but that he was going to die and made quite a production of his pain. I decided that maybe I should take him to the hospital to have the pediatrician check him out in case he swallowed something strange. I bundled him up and put him on the back seat of the bike to cycle through the snow to the only place that was open on a Saturday afternoon. He fell asleep waiting and was still in pain when his turn came up and the doctor examined him. She decided he should have x-rays and sent us upstairs to the x-ray room. L was quite excited by the fancy machines and cooperated with the technician who sent us back downstairs with our film five minutes later.

The doctor looked carefully and announced that yes, he is constipated. If things didn't begin moving on their own by Sunday, we should give him an enema. Thank you and goodbye. L asked for a drink from the vending machine in the lobby so I made a deal that he go to the bathroom first. He decided to forgo the ladies' room and venture solo into the men's room. He took his time and when he finally exitted the men's room, he proudly announced to the 30 or 40 people in the lobby that he'd just had the biggest BM in the world and that the toilets have butt washers like the place where we stayed last summer! Fortunately his doctors' visits are free until he starts elementary school or I would have been a little disappointed at the costly trip to the fancy toilet.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's good to know that L has the family BM genes. His eldest uncle F would be so proud. Take care and lots of love from Ithaca.