Okay. So here’s how it shakes down.

Porter is about this close to becoming a pharmacological poster child. I took him to the doctor this week due to a seemingly endless list of symptoms. A list that was punctuated with the item CRYING, LOTS AND LOTS OF CRYING (yes, all in caps). When the doctor asked me to explain the symptoms, I told him to get his pen ready, ’cause this was gonna take a while: teething, fluid in the ears, persistent runny nose, lack of appetite, intermittent goopy eyes, sleeplessness, throwing up, CRYING, LOTS AND LOTS OF CRYING – did you get that last one? Of the whole list, he immediately zeroed in on the one thing I have begun to take for granted – the throwing up. He said that chances are pretty high that he has GE reflux, also known by the ridiculous sounding acronym GERD. (Yes, Sharan, I know you already told me this.) He prescribed heartburn meds and said that we can probably attribute just about every item on the list, save teething, to the reflux. The remaining symptoms, he quickly surmised, are allergies. The give-away: his skin. Both of my children were lucky enough to inherit their father’s lizard skin. And in the world of relationships, apparently, eczema and allergies are like peas and carrots. With one, comes the other. And there you have it.

Final med tally: 5 [Dimetapp, Zantac, Cortizone Cream, Ibuprofin, Anti-bacterial eye drops]

…which may allow me to finally discontinue my self-prescribed med list of alcohol, caffeine and M&Ms.