Ear Tubes and Colds and Noodles, Oh My!

When we last left our heroine, I mentioned I thought she had another ear infection.  And I was right.  Mother's intuition and all.  I took her to the ENT later on Thursday and, sure enough, her right ear had fluid on it, so they gave us some oral antibiotics to start with the hope that it would clear up some of the gunk before surgery on Monday.  Since Evie wasn't feeling so great, we didn't do much over the weekend.  Mostly we hung out at home and played with toys, read books, played with the dogs.  You know, the usual.  I experimented with doing her hair in low pigtails and I'm just amazed that her hair is long enough to do that now!

I also love how she enjoys hiding in her tunnel, sneaking little treasures in there with her.  This time she had her pretend real cell phone.

Monday morning we had to be at the surgery center by 6:45, but Evie got to stay in her pjs and had to skip breakfast so I didn't wake her up until about 6:00.  There were two other kids having surgery with Dr. Morgan that morning, one 12 month old and one about 2 and a half.  Since they do surgeries in order of age, we were the second ones to go, but the surgery is so quick that there's not much waiting between patients.  So we sort of all went back together and got briefed by the anesthesiologist and nurses at the same time.  I mean, they still made individual contact with each of us, but we listened to the same spiel a few times.  Evie was pretty patient through it all though she was getting bored and tired of sitting around about 10 minutes before they called her back for the surgery.  I entertained her for a bit by pretending to drop her (she loves that) and then we started walking up and down the halls.  They called us down so she could get into this little green wagon they have to take the kids back (so that they're distracted) and she didn't make any kind of fuss about being separated from me.  I got to wait in a separate waiting room for all of 8 minutes before Dr. Morgan came in to tell me he was done and that it went well and there was no fluid left from the infection (yay!), and then about 5 minutes later someone came to take me to meet Evie in recovery, where I found her slurping down apple juice.  We don't do juice so I'm sure that was a big treat for her.

She stayed happy most of the day and was patient while we dropped off her prescription and then finally got to eat breakfast.  It was about 9 am when we got home, so she had waited a while, but I could tell she was still a little loopy from the gas.  She didn't seem like she was in any pain, except when I had to put ear drops in her ears (three drops, three times a day for three days - torture!).  She took a really long nap from 11 am - 3:30 pm and seemed a little feverish when I woke her up so I gave her some ibuprofen.  As the day went on, I noticed she was coughing more and more.  Fortunately she had her 18 month check up on Tuesday so I got Dr. Vafai's opinion on it.  She thinks it's just a cold.  We can't win!  Since Evie's already on antibiotics, it's probably a viral thing and will just have to run its course.  She has her clingy moments where you can tell she's not feeling well, but most of the time she's still up for playing and being happy.  Hopefully she'll beat the cold soon and we'll finally be well!

I had a lot of people tell me that when their kids got tubes the change in behavior was like night and day.  Before their kids didn't sleep well and were docile and didn't say much and after they were sleeping through the night and playing with much more enthusiasm and starting talking like crazy.  Well, Evie's only woken up in the middle of the night a few times since she was 8 months old (at least, when we were at home in a familiar environment), and she plays well, and she has plenty of vocabulary.  But I have noticed that in the last couple of days she's differentiating between some sounds that she hasn't before, like saying t rather than d for some things and making her w's clearer.  But I have been chalking it up to the fact that she's around that age where language and phoneme acquisition is exploding.  However, yesterday she said the word noodle so clearly that I second guessed my own second guessing of exactly how much a difference the surgery would have on her hearing and speech.  I mean, it was noodle, clear as day.  So much so that I cried.  In response to which, Seth immediately assured me that it was okay and I told him I wasn't crying because I was sad, but because I was so happy and proud.  He laughed and said he'd gotten so used to seeing me tear up and then sob during the first year that now when I have teary mommy moments he assumes a post-partum hormonal meltdown is about to ensue.

My ridiculous, this-only-happens-to-parents moment of the week came on Sunday night.  Seth had changed Evie's diaper upstairs and, in the process, had accidentally stepped on a tube of Desitin that was lying precariously around the room.  The pressured caused a bunch of the stuff to pop out of the lid, so he moved the tub and the extra goop into the bathroom, thinking we could find some way to save it for later use.  Later I went to see if I could somehow put the cream back in the tube and foolishly attempted to just mush it back in.  I quickly realized that that was not going to work and that we should just throw it away because, really, we hardly ever use Desitin anyway.  Somehow between trying to save the cream and deciding it wasn't worth it, I got the stuff all over my hands and then I foolishly tried to wash it off.  The result of my rubbing my hands together under the water was this:

Fortunately Seth came and rescued me and reminded me that I can't wash off something that's oil based, and he handed me a towel.

 Also, Evie turned 18 months on Friday.  This is her last big monthly milestone - after this people tend to only care about years.  I re-read my post from last year when she turned 6 months, and it's so strange to me how much time changes everything.  I was melancholy last year (and battling postpartum depression) with Evie being closer to toddlerhood than infancy.  When I look back on it now, with my hormones completely returned to normal and my depression long gone, I find it strange that it affected me so much because every day has gotten better and better.  There is the very rare occasion when I miss Evie being at a certain stage - like before she could crawl and I could have her sit on a blanket and know she wouldn't get into any trouble, or those quiet moments rocking her to sleep when we were moving her to her own crib - but I don't long for those baby days.  I love this little toddler who's learning all these new words, who throws her own trash away, who would rather read a book than do just about anything else, who can eat "people food" as Seth calls it and can feed it to herself.  I love her desire for autonomy, her playful spirit, and her self-initiated kisses and snuggles.  Everybody has their own favorite stages of child development, and I don't think we've hit my favorite yet with Evie (I anticipate that to be around age 4... or 8...), but I do love that each day she surprises me with something new.