Hawaii, Part 2

Have you ever asked complete strangers to pray that someone you know have a bowel movement? If not, the rest of this post may not make sense to you, but then again maybe it will.
When my wife mentioned a couple of days ago that baby hadn't made a poopie in 5 days, I thought it probably wasn't a good thing but that it probably wasn't a very big deal, either. After all, some grownups I know fail to maintain flawless regularity when traveling. Yesterday, when baby had yet to fill her diaper, my wife called our pediatrician's office back in Rhode Island and was told not to panic, to maybe try adding some water to baby's otherwise breastmilk-only diet for a couple of days. Baby, it turned out, had other ideas, refusing all but a few drops of water, and even these she demanded to receive from a plastic bottle of water that mostly spilled down her chest. She thought it was hilarious and worthy of semi-infinite repetitions. Night came, and still baby's diaper was cleaner than we'd hoped. When after her first morning feeding today nothing had changed in that regard, my wife called the pediatrician's office for the second time and was reassured by another compassionate nurse that this really wasn't very far afield of normal in the broader scheme of things.

It's probably worth mentioning, meanwhile, that baby had remained happy-go-lucky and otherwise bubbly all this time. Anyway, for all my efforts to talk my wife out of her anxiety about her wee one, it turns out my anxiety was not inconsiderable. Which I learneed when I asked some people at a spiritual gathering at the beach if they could pray for my baby to move her bowels. I'm not sure if they were impressed by my request, but it is within the realm of possibility that when baby finally did fill her diaper, and then some, around one o'clock this afternoon it was partly the result of the kindness of strangers saying a quick prayer on her behalf. I'm willing to believe anything.

And, oh, by the way: Baby crawled one inch today, for the first time. We recorded it on video and plan to show it to her several hundred times just as soon as she finds it interesting. Aloha for now.