RED POOP (Warning: this will be gross)

Amelia's bowel movements have been a constant subject of discussion in our home since the day she was born. The girl eats like a new nail file (direct translation from a Puerto Rican saying "come como lima nueva") but could use some Activia more often than not. We are not talking constipation, more like a consistency issue. 'Nough said.

SO thanks to the Colombian book of remedies, Amelia's babysitter keeps her on a diet of plenty of beans. In the words of my husband, a bean hater himself, Wilma gives Amelia an amount of beans that would be outlawed in certain countries. Lentisl. red beans, chick peas, black eyed beans and even beans I don't even recognize. Yet, since I grew up in PR, beans are just part of a healthy diet.

But to our surprise the scariest poop we have seen in these 18 and half months was not the jumping beans' fault. It happened tonight after a day of too much intestinal activity. It was her fourth time and we were about to bathe her for the evening. I saw something frightfully dark on her diaper and when I lifted: it was RED. Steve immediately yelled "BLOOD!". I thought, "tamal mexicano".

No, not the swine flu that has our poor Mexican friends handing us a note from their doctors before we even answer their emails. This is a "tamal dulce" that Wilma feeds Amelia once in a while. I am afraid she buys it on the street too. The sweet tamal is dark red and it seems our girl ate more of it than she usually does.

Instead of calling the doctor, I called our Colombian wise woman and confirmed my suspicion. Steve is still trying to get the image out of his head. I made Wilma promise me no beans for Amelia tomorrow. Ay Mama!

A size and a half smaller

Amelia is a tall girl. Almost three feet at 18 months. She outgrows clothing like the jolly green giant and I'm always on top of that. Her feet...well , that's another story. We bought her 2 pairs of those expensive shoes "that will make her walk better" last December. She was a 5 1/2 wide. From then on, my shoe quest continued with that number as my guiding light. I love shoes so I pride myself in keeping Amelia up with the latest styles, except her pudgy feet won't cooperate.

Hence, she's been living in her good shoes for a while. But now it seems it was for far too long. We went to one of the children shoe Mecca's, Nordstrom, to get our girl sized. As soon as the beautiful Croatian sales lady took one look at her feet stuck in her way too expensive Ecco sneakers, she said "those don't fit her".

At home they looked fine but in the Nordstrom's light Amelia's feet looked like stuffed sausages. The moment of truth hapenned when she put her little foot on the measuring "scale". Amelia was almost a 7W and she was wearing 51/2W shoes. I thought the sales lady was going to call DCFS on us. She almost hit us when she gave us the news.

In hindsight, Amelia likes to be barefoot a lot. Tight shoes from her neglectful parents might have been the problem. The good news is that she left Nordstrom's with two nice pairs of shoes, moderately expensive, but that fit her perfectly. She is very lucky to have a grandma that will subsidise her shoe needs. I have to go return 2 pairs of cute sandals to GAP and Target. Ay Mama!