Poop charts.

This is so embarrassing. I feel so dreadful for my kids, but thankfully they haven't faced any teasing from their friends about it. We now keep a poop chart in the bathroom.

The idea is that if we're aware of their output, we can start experimenting with the input. That is, we're planning to start introducing those forbidden grains, as the doctor suggested back in June. I just want to be sure we notice if something goes awry.

So the chart is basically 3 columns: one for the date, and one for each child's poop-observations. When they poop, they write AM or PM and a particular symbol to describe the sort of bowel movement they experienced. They're generally quite good about it -- sometimes a little over-creative in the diagrams they make, and sometimes they forget to write anything at all. But this has been enlightening for us.

Rhiannon has diarrhea more often than not. Hmmm.

She's already gluten-free, and for the most part soy, egg, and pinto-bean free, as well. I am not looking forward to paying another $400.00 to have her tested for allergies. So for now this is just an observation and we'll continue to watch and see how it goes. I'm not as worried about her. Taliesin dropped from 99th to 15th percentile, before we went gluten free, and has had growth-issues, ever since. But Rhiannon has always been tall and robust -- somewhere in the 95th percentile-range. She's happy and healthy. So whatever is going on with her poop is not of such concern to us, right now.

Sometimes I wonder if all the hoopla about Taliesin's diet is part of the reason he's not physically thriving. So we try to be as relaxed as possible about it, having fun with food and trying very hard to keep the issues stress-free.