I think I'm back!

It's been a few months, and lots of things have changed in my life. I'm selling our house, moving, pulling my oldest out of Catholic school because we can't afford it, and getting divorced. After a few weeks to heal some and a great therapist and friends to cry with, I feel I can now continue down my little journey forged through the pooh. So, here are my updates on the kids!

Michaela: she still continues to have small accidents. We keep to a high fiber diet as a regular in our house, but otherwise, she's not on any Miralax, soy, probiotics or anything else anymore. None of it ever worked for her. But she doesn't seem to be constipated anymore. I think her "accidents" are from lack of paying attention at this point.

Maeve: she is completely 100% diaper free! Right after that last post in August, she never really looked back. She's had a handful of accidents, but she's not even 4 yet, so I can deal. She's much better that Michaela ever was at this age, so I'm thankful for that!!

Alasdair: he's a little more complicated. We see his surgeon every year in January for his check-ups post pull-thru surgery for his Hirschsprung's. Last January at 18 months old he finally hit 20 pounds, thanks to his high fat-high calorie diet. He was doing great! In June when he turned 2 he was 28 pounds! So we figured we could put him on the same diet everyone else is on in the house, like 2% milk instead of whole cut with half/half, eliminate the nutrition drink at night cut with half/half, cut down the butter and fats, etc. He continued to do well until about October. His bowel movements started to get erratic. He would not go for 1 - 2 days, then he'd go 2 or 3 times in one day, and they were huge blow-out poohs that stunk to high heaven. But he wasn't distended, he didn't have a fever, and his appetite hadn't changed, so I wasn't too worried about enterocolitis. This continued until last week when we saw our surgeon for our check up. He weighed in at 27 1/2 pounds. Uh. Yeah. While they were happy with is growth chart having gained 8 pounds in 1 year, I'm not so thrilled with the fact that he didn't gain anything at all in 6 months. I know that weight gain slows down as they get older, but it shouldn't stop altogether. So, he's back on the high fat-high calorie diet. And we were told to give him a senna laxative (Little Tummies). We give it to him once a day and it's definitely gotten things moving. So far he's had between 1 and 3 bms every day since we started giving it to him. And while they still smell fairly raunchy, they are returning to a more normal consistency (slowly) and a better color. So we'll continue with this until things get back to normal, keep him on his diet until his birthday in June, and hope that we will be able to take him off the senna soon. The prospect of having to use it long term is not an appealing one.