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.

Feathers

Did you know that this is the time of year when birds molt? That's right. They lose their feathers right about now. And do you know how I know that? You may be thinking that it's from all the years I spent volunteering at bird rehabilitation clinics. It's true. I did that. I even raised ducks for awhile and released them into the wild...but that was after all their feathers came in. They weren't around long enough for feathers to fall out.

Nope. I know that birds are molting because I have a little girl who is obsessed with feathers. In fact, on our recent trip to Shoreline Park with AK and Spencer (see previous post) I think Mam picked up enough feathers to make her own goose out of cardboard, toothpicks and her massive collection.

It turns out that Canada geese are champions at losing feathers in the spring. Apart from all of the pathways at the park being liberally coated in goose poop, they were coated in big, black feathers (which, likely as not, were also coated with goose poop). This particular goose looks a little concerned that perhaps Mam is making off with one of her offspring.

So, what, you might ask, are we doing with our stroller-full of feathers? Well, they're currently sitting on the patio table, waiting for a strong gust of wind to blow them away while I pretend to collect cardboard and toothpicks...