God Bless Dr. Sears

OK. The sleep book was horse shit. I don't need to pay $20 for a book to tell me to get over myself if my baby doesn't sleep through the night. Yeah, he's hungry. I get it. Why don't you send someone on over to feed him for me. I'll give you another $20. What? Where are you going???

But the website. Ahhhhhh. The website. When I go to Dr. Google and frantically type in some search term, like tonight's "infant loose stool", and the first link up is to Dr. Sears' site it's like someone has thrown me a life raft. I just want to give every single one of those damn Dr. Searses a great big sloppy kiss.

Dr. Sears tells me I'm not crazy (unlike Doombot). Dr. Sears tells me that its ok to love my baby so much I'm in tears because he's got diarrhea (while the baby giggles at me because it doesn't bother him a bit). Dr. Sears tells me some shit I can do to feel like I'm helping (Give him some live and active cultures!) Dr. Sears even tells me all of this for free.

Unlike Dr. Opium Den, who charged me fifteen bucks.

Squirrel School called at about 3:30 this afternoon, to the shock of absolutely no one, to tell me I needed to come get him. In all actuality, the "three loose poop" alarm clock went off about four hours later than I had expected. I was just glad to have gotten most of a work day in. See, Orion has been pooping soup for four days now. He doesn't seem dehydratedm and when he's not fighting sleep because his tummy hurts, he's laughing non-stop. He's eating less than normal, but I kept thinking it would just go away. But today, Squirrel School forced my hand.

We've only been in OKC a month, so we don't have a pediatrician yet. I was gonna need a Dr. note to be able to get back to work tomorrow, so I set about looking for a walk-in clinic. What I found was awful. I would rather have had Orion treated in the bathroom from Trainspotting.

First, it stunk like old food and cigarettes. Never a good sign in a Dr. office. Then the 9-volt battery in the infant scale was dead and they couldn't find another one. So, we did the next best thing:

Step 1: Weigh Mom Holding the Baby
Step 2: Round Combined Weight Down to Nearest Five Pound Mark
Step 3: Ask Mom How Much She Weighs For Subtraction Purposes
Step 4: Sigh Loudly When Mom Doesn't Know
Step 5: Weigh Mom Alone For Subtraction Purposes, Rounding Up to Nearest Five Pounds

The oh-so-accurate result? Orion has evidently lost 3lbs in the last month.

After we established that my baby weighed somewhere between fifteen and twenty pounds the examination began. The Dr. told me to feed nothing but Pedialyte for 24 hours, then changed his mind. He told me that there was nothing wrong, and told me how to cure constipation. I'll have to keep that in mind, asshole.

I got my daycare release and left.

By two hours later I was in tears. I KNEW there was something wrong with the squirrel but I didn't know what to do about it. I came home and asked the BabyCenter ladies with no luck. Desperate, I turned to Dr. Google.

Dr. Sears had me switch to soy formula, mixed 50/50 with Pedialyte. Doombot ran out and got it. One bottle and Orion was out. At least I feel like I'm doing something.