A good doctor's appointment

Sam, Donald (Papa G), and I drove up to Waltham for a follow-up appointment with Terri, the nurse practitioner in the Pedriatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition unit at MGH West. I'm really starting to like Terri. Both times that we've seen her (this time, and part of our visit ~5 weeks ago) she's struck me as competent and really down-to-earth. She questions the milk allergy hypothesis and has come up with a plan for us to systematically test IF Sam is milk-sensitive, and if so, HOW sensitive (i.e. Can I drink milk while nursing him and just avoid giving him dairy directly? Or do we really have to be on the complete elimination diet we've been doing recently?). Basically, we're reintroducing dairy gradually to me, then Sam, while testing Sam's poop for traces of blood (a sign of colon inflammation due to allergy) using dip-sticks she sent home with me. She also has a theory to explain a recent flare-up in Sam's reflux that has had Jed and myself banging our heads against the wall ... he's teething (no #%^& Sherlocke) and the drool he's swallowing exacerbates the reflux. So she's up'd his Prilosec dose slightly. Finally, Terri thinks that if we can survive Sam's molars coming in that then we'll be ready to deal with the behavioral aspects of Sam's nightly wake-up routine. She clearly weighed in with her opinion on how much of the problem is behavioral, as opposed to physiological, and how we might consider dealing with it while being very supportive of my feelings about letting Sam cry and respectful of our right to decide how to be parents. It was a really refreshing conversation with a medical professional. Overall, a really worthwhile trip to Waltham.
Then, to top it off, we arrived home with three hours to enjoy the ~70F sunshine before dinner time. We played in the back yard and went for a nice long walk on the cranberry bogs. There are new photos on Picasa of Sam helping his grandfather water some very thirsty plants and seeds in our back yard ... very cute :)