This morning

did not start terribly well. Well, last night was good; Avtalyon slept in a regular crib all night, with his big brothers in the room, and everyone slept fine from when I moved Avtalyon in there at around 9 through till 6:45 this morning. I had to leave at 7:30 to take Iyyar to the doctor, and of course at 7:35 there was no cab. Many back and forth calls later (during each of which I reconfirmed my exact address) I got a call that "my cab had arrived"--ten blocks away. Gah! So we left half an hour late, for the appointment that it had taken a month to get, with me practically in tears thinking we'd miss it and Avtalyon hysterical because I kept coming in and out the front door with the car seat. (Oh, and Avtalyon has a fever. Forgot to mention that part.)

We did make it, in the end, with about a minute to spare. The appointment went well. We were there all morning, from 8:40 till around noon. Iyyar was down another half pound to 31. We checked in with the nurse, who took the back story, and then we spent a good half hour talking to the GI doctor, who listened, asked questions, examined him, and then told me what she thought the possibilities were: behavioral constipation (I really don't think that's it at this point), celiac, a thyroid problem, parasites, or something with a very long name that means a sensitivity to milk protein in the small intestine. She ordered a bunch of blood work and we also need to bring in stool samples for the parasites etc. Unfortunately, Iyyar has very small veins and the phlebotomist could only get enough blood to do the chem labs. We were told to come back, but I'm going to see if I can get the labs done at our local hospital and have them sent over. The place we went to today is half an hour away by cab, which means at least two hours of babysitting plus cabs etc.

We also saw a nutritionist, who thinks that the weight loss is mostly to do with a) taking dairy out of his diet and b) him not feeling good, partly because of the tummy issues and also partly because of his huge huge huge tonsils. (We're seeing the ENT next week, and I fully expect to be told that the tonsils have to go. Did I mention they're HUGE?) I told her exactly what Iyyar eats in a given day--it doesn't vary much--and she said I needed to be adding fat. More peanut butter, which he loves, or olive oil on his noodles. I've been worrying about getting vegetables into him, but she said I should be focusing on fats (which also help lubricate the digestive system, as it were.)

In general it was reassuring. The doctor told me point blank that she doesn't see signs of anything extremely concerning; Iyyar was happy and bouncy and playing the whole time we were there, ate his whole snack (strawberries, crackers, raisins and apple juice) with great gusto, and seemed to forgive her for the indignity of the rectal exam. She wants him back on Miralax, even though it did nothing at all that I could see, and also agreed that we should go back to daily warm baths and lots of A & D in the diaper in case the problem is fissures that are making pooping painful.

The nice part about going to a specialist at a children's hospital is that the whole place is so well set up for kids. The exam rooms are kid-friendly, there are tons of toys, everyone there deals well with kids. The hard part is seeing so many kids in such bad shape. There was a little girl in an examining room next to ours whose wheelchair was sitting nearby; she was lying on an examining table while the adults were talking a few feet away, and my instinct was, "careful, she'll roll right off!" Then I looked again and realized that she wasn't capable of rolling herself anywhere. I am not good at seeing such things and telling myself how much I have to be grateful for. I know exactly how much I have--but that doesn't make it hurt less to see people with much harder things to deal with.

Anyway. That's the update for today. No poop to report, but no poop-related misery either, which is something. As for me, my house is clean, my kids are abed, and it's time to write some speeches.