How to determine if you should take a sick day...

My baby has felt really crappy all weekend, and Sunday night his fever shot up to 102.  My husband and I reached a consensus that, if he didn't feel better in the morning, he was staying home.  Unfortunately, I had projects at work that absolutely required I be there, so my hubby got to stay home all day with the baby.

I can't complain too much, since they cleaned the whole house.  But I always hate being at work when my little guy is not feeling well.  He still wasn't doing great last night, and he was just feeling well enough this morning to go to school.  (He's been over 24 hours without a fever now.)

But my hubby and I talked about it and, since he got yesterday off, if the preschool calls saying my son needs to come home, I'm going to get him today.  This got me to thinking about how we validate sick days.  Take the test below to determine if you should call in to work today.

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My Toddler is a Truant

My husband and I are not overly picky about what our son eats, so long as it's relatively healthy (i.e. "better than a Happy Meal"). We don't care if he ingests soy products, or milk that doesn't come from organic, grassfed cows. There are two things about which we are pretty strict, however: no red meat, and no juice.

There isn't any sort of moral issue with the red meat. It's just that, for health reasons, my husband and I don't eat it so it's not kept in our house. So our son is not used to eating it, and if he does, it'll give him the runs.

We also don't want him drinking juice because his pediatrician told us it has very little nutritional value and is more sugar than he needs. Since he's not used to it, juice will also give him the runs.

A lot of our life decisions revolve around messy-diaper avoidance.

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Decoding your baby's poop

Let's talk about poop. Ever since my son transitioned to solid foods, my mind has been besieged by this mystery. Why is it that my son's solid, easy-to-clean bowel movements smell like chemical warfare, while his disgusting, diaper-blowing-out bouts of diarrhea are relatively odorless?

All of my research on the subject (scanning the first few links that pop up on Google) has yielded no results. So are there any pediatricians/nurses/nannies/moms-who-know-more-than-me/etc. out there who can answer this one? Why are the solid ones so much smellier?