On the up and up

So the two things that have been conspiring to keep us sleepless the past week were a kid that turned into a (very loud and insistent) grunting machine in the witching hours and a cat bent on turning the house into a Pollockesque poop canvas. Everyone is quite familiar with the first, I'm sure, but the second I'm almost equally sure you've never experienced. At least not quite like this. Julius has been diagnosed with mega-colon, which means he has to go on a very special diet and take medicine to contract his colon muscles because he can't do it himself anymore. Unfortunately for us, the combination of those factors meant that his urge to purge comes on very suddenly and the consistency of it is such that it sticks to him, thus freaking him out and causing him to try to flee from it. Which he never quite succeeds at, but does manage to spatter poop everywhere he runs in the meantime. We put up a baby-gate to at least keep him out of the bedroom, but a few nights ago he was so terrified of the poop hanging off him that he somehow managed to break the gate down, and in the process spattered poo on surfaces including but not limited to: the floor, the yoga mat, the other yoga mat (which were protecting the rug), the rug (which was obviously not well enough protected), the baby-gate, the door jam, the door, the bookcase, the wall, the bedframe, the duvet, the down comforter inside the duvet, the top sheet, the pillow, and all over the place underneath the bed. This, of course, was right after we had just finally gotten Jack to sleep at 4am, having just been up for the past two hours, and required another hour of cleaning (which I made Danny do while I rocked Jack back and forth in the one corner of the house not covered in poo).

The reason I can speak with a sense of humor about this now is that we seem to have turned a corner. We took the vet-recommended fiber out of Julius's diet (what do vets know, anyway?) and now his poop doesn't stick to him anymore, so it winds up in one nice big pile. It'd be even better if that pile wound up in his sandbox instead of on my fleece left sitting on the couch to keep me warm during the late night feedings, and if I wasn't so tired at the late night feedings that I didn't put my hand right in the poo while trying to put on the fleece, but one thing at a time. This is a major improvement. And last night, thanks to my sister's expert mommy and nurse advice, we turned a corner with Jack as well. She got him a pacifier yesterday and promised me that we could take it away as soon as he finds his hands and he won't care, but for the time being, when you've got to suck, you've got to suck. She also taught him to use the pacifier yesterday, so that all we had to do was stick it in his mouth at night and he settled right down. She also diagnosed his grunting as minor reflux, and elevated the head of the mattress of his co-sleeper so that he would be more comfortable. And I don't know if we owe our gratitude to the pacifier or the mattress or the combination of the two, but I think we got close to seven hours of sleep last night. O Frabjuous Day! Super Alison to the rescue!

We had a great visit with Aunt Alison and great-Grandma yesterday, and Jack entertained them with his myriad facial expressions, which are now beginning to include smiles. Not just the sly half-smiles he would give us in his sleep, but honest to goodness open-mouthed gummy smiles. Alison swore she also heard a giggle, and I am convinced that at least some of those smiles were not a result of gas. She took a bunch more beautiful photos, too. What will we do when she leaves us? Chris, you have to send her back! I know she has her own babies at home to take care of, but it turns out we really need her around here!