Oh, crap.

If you're not a parent of a young child, you have probably heard that parents of young children, especially babies, are obsessed with diaper contents. This is true...and the more colorful or stinkifying, the more worthy of remark. One color you really don't want to see is red. As in the violent, dark shade that is unmistakeably blood.

That, and a presumeably historical bout with constipation, got Mam a referral to a GI specialist at the local children's hospital. Having virtually lived at this hospital for three and a half months after Smunch was born (Smunch lived there, I only virtually lived there) and having visited a friend with a 5.5-year-old daughter in the PICU two weeks ago today...a daughter who tragically died just four days later, this is not my favorite place to go. It's a teaching hospital...which means you get to see people who know not-a-whole-lot before you actually get to see the specialists who know one hell of a lot.

Happily, today's was a very good experience from a customer service perspective. We didn't have to enter the actual hospital, only the clinic across the street. The medical student, or resident, or whatever she was didn't seem terribly experienced, but she was nice and the doctor was great. She asked if I was crunched for time (having dropped Smunch off with Gram, I wasn't), had us go down to Radiology for an X-ray. We didnt have to wait. It was very simple. Then the Gi doctor had us come back up afterward. The X-ray was sent right to her computer and we were called back in within about 5 minutes of arriving back at Gastroenterology.

Unhappily, the medical news was not great (after renewing my perspective on such things with my visit a couple of weeks ago, it's not that bad either). Apparently, our happy, active Mam was hiding the fact that she's full of sh*t. Literally. She really seemed fine. She's been eating lots of fruit. Not complaining on the potty. I'm surprised this kid as been as happy as she has. I know I wouldn't be.

So, I came home to experiment with how in the world to get two full caps of Miralax (the miracle laxative, if you couldn't tell) into a wee bitty Mam every day. Water, colored with blue Gatorade was not the answer. So, we took a trip to Costco where I stocked up on the aforementioned Miralax (thanks for making that OTC guys!), apple juice and M&Ms to reward her for drinking her 8oz of magic apple juice twice a day. This should be fun. Really.