We officially survived the Poopocalypse of 2014.

Brendan had another fantastic day. We have struggled for so long to try to keep Brendan so still during his feeding sessions. We have watched him retch and gag and gasp for breath. He started a new medication to help his stomach empty faster. And all this time, the answer might have been as simple as changing formula. It hurts my brain and my heart that it took so long to get to this point.
It is still early, but the change is beyond significant.

After having so much difficulty pooping all last week, I think Brendan took care of all of the backed up business today. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or laugh while crying, but it was a blowout like we have never seen. Brendan was all smiles and thought his sink bath was hilarious. I almost took pictures of his adorable face but half of it was plastered with poop like he was trying to camouflage himself in to a mudslide. How is it that a kid that won’t touch food will smear poop EVERYWHERE.

It was a gorgeous day to spend outside while the house aired out.

Selfie master

Showing Brendan he can take a killer selfie too

Sunday evening. Trevor is flagging down the ice cream truck!

Neapolitan sandwich! Eating it from the side to efficiently distribute bites among flavors

Brendan opted for rock climbing over ice cream today

Sprinkler fun

A complete nap fail this afternoon led to quite a meltdown-filled bedtime routine. But both boys were passed out solid by 8pm.
We need more sleep.

I am very happy to say that Brendan had an outstanding night of good sleep, and he had a perfect barf-free day on his new formula. What a difference!
Of course, it is too early to celebrate success, but it is a start. Now I can have a few nights where I feel horrible guilt about not pushing for something like this sooner. He has been on that old formula for over a year and has had moderate struggles the whole time, although it was much worse recently. I hate thinking that he has suffered needlessly.
But we move on and hope with all our might that he just gets better and better from here.

We didn’t get a chance to celebrate the half-birthday yesterday, so while we were out today, we picked up a treat. Trevor chose this.

Brendan might have chosen something different.

He did warm up to the idea and stacked donuts for a while.

YUM!

You all ate the whole box? Yes.

Good to the last sprinkle.

Teasing Trevor, and our chocolate donut penalty

It was COLD outside this evening (OK, it was 68) but we still enjoyed some time on the patio. It was very windy and tried to rain a bit.
The truth about who really built the gate:

Brendan is peacefully asleep – here’s hoping for another solid night!

Once again, I had plans for the day in my head and nothing went as I expected! Brendan’s overnight feed with half pedialyte and half formula was great. He woke up in a wonderful smiley mood. But at 9am when he was hooked up for his first 1hr session of the day…. vomit.

I started making phone calls to the pediatrician and GI doctors. After some phone tag and lots of repeating myself, it was decided that we should try switching to a different formula. What he eats is an amino acid based, hypoallergenic, ultra broken down, medically balanced mix. There are several brands though and they all do things a bit differently. Trevor and I drove out to the GI doctors office to pick up some trial cans.

For his second 1hr feed, we ran pedialyte and he was perfect. His 3rd and 4th ones were the new formula and so far so good. No barfing! It might take a few weeks to know how he will do on this. He could get worse too. I want very badly for this to be the answer to helping him feel better every day.

So that ate up the whole morning. Bill had a really long arduous work week, so he was able to sign out a little early today. He used the time he had to do some welding. More progress was made on the ironwork out front.

For two days, I have tried to sneak a little time here and there to build the boys a mega-epic-gigantic-super-preposterous GeoTrax town layout. It was complete in time for their half-birthday! We had four trains and a plane going all at once.

Plane-train collision!

More pictures and video will follow about the layout, it takes up the entire playroom and climbs 8 or 9 GeoTrax stories high. Hopefully it will stay intact long enough for Kieran to experience it too!

We are appreciating our “Spring” weather every evening. We all love sitting out front.
Brendan practices more selfies. He can’t take a bad one!

I think Trevor looks like pictures of a young me in this picture!

He learned how to use a level

“Here’s your problem, right here”

Practicing hand shaking

Trevor has fully decorated with chalk. In two places, it almost looks like he wrote “Trevor”. It is amazing. 😀

This is a big weekend. I am nervous for what these changes will bring. It is time something big happened to help propel Brendan’s health to the next level. He is doing so well with everything else.