Friday, two weeks ago, I took Alanna to the doctor to see if she had an ear infection. She has had a runny nose and slight cough off and on for the past two months. She cut four teeth in December which I figured caused some of the runny nose issues but then all through January she has dealt with the same thing. Her sleep has been not so great at night. She has been been waking up several times a night, sometimes staying up for 2-4 hours straight at a time. So after another sleepless night I finally decided to take her to the doctor.
They had a really hard time telling if she had an ear infection. They said her ear canals were so small it was hard to see anything. They had to clean her ears out and even after cleaning them out, they could only see into one ear. But the one they could see in to was infected.
I held off giving her the anti-biotic for one more week hoping that the ear drops and ibuprofen would be enough to help her sleep and maybe it would clear up on its own. But a week later and she was still sleeping horrible and no sign of her runny nose clearing up. So last Friday I put her on the antibiotic. By Monday of this week I could tell she was starting to feel better. She wasn't following me around the house constantly wanting to be held and her nose was clearing up some. She has been sleeping a little better this week as well. She's still waking up at night but only to nurse for 10-20 minutes and then go back to sleep. And two nights ago she slept through the night. O thank you... I might be getting to the point where all three of my kids are sleeping through the night on a regular basis. How amazing would that be.
Monday morning Liam woke up with a runny nose. I didn't think much of it though. The doctor told me that kids get 8-10 colds per year...most of them occurring in the winter and usually happening back to back. Really??? Spring please hurry up!!! Anyways...Monday morning kind of was a not so good morning. Everything seemed to be "off". So after lunch we went to the Children's Museum and played for about three hours. Liam was totally fine the whole time we were there, although he had been super cranky at home before we had left. When we got in the van he started screaming. He cried for about 20 minutes before telling me that his ear hurt...Great! Another kid with an ear infection.
We were almost to my Mom's house by that point (she had invited us over for a bit) so I got all the kids out of the van and hoped my Mom would have some children's ibuprofen. Alanna was sleeping the whole way from the museum to my Mom's and I knew she wouldn't be happy when I had to wake her up. She wasn't and my Mom didn't have an medicine and Liam wouldn't stop screaming and holding onto his ear. So I called the doctor and thankfully got a sick appointment for an hour later. I was out of ibuprofen at home so I stopped at CVS on the way to the doctors. I strapped Alanna into the carrier and carried Liam into the store...with him screaming as loud as he could all the way into the store and the entire time we were in the store.
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| This is how she likes to fall asleep...with her blankey over her face. |
I gave him the medicine before we left the parking lot and hoped it would kick in soon. It took about 35 minutes to start helping his pain but he finally stopped screaming a few minutes after we sat down in the waiting room. The nurse was so great with Liam. He made Liam smile and laugh and let Liam talk about cheetahs and camels with him. The doctor said he did have an ear infection. Liam felt much better after getting some ear drops in his ears and getting on his medicine. He cried a little on Tuesday about his ear hurting but hasn't said anything about it since.
Wednesday was such a beautiful day. It got up to just over 50 degrees. As we sat at our dining table doing school, I couldn't stop thinking about how nice it would be to take the kids somewhere to enjoy the probably one day of nice weather we would have for some time. So we finished up our morning school work, ate lunch, and headed out to one of our favorite parks. This park doesn't have a playground but it has tons of animals, beautiful trees, bamboo, great rocks for climbing, and beautiful gardens. The kids love the goats, pigs, bunnies, chickens, buffalo, and black bears. They were so excited to be going to the park they could hardly wait to get there. Alanna LOVED the bunnies. They jumped right over to her and she got to touch them. Ruy's favorite part of the day was climbing up the rocks and Liam said his favorite part was the goats, cows, and pigs. Ruy's prayer that night ended with ...."and thank you for letting us see the goats, chickens, roosters, bunnies, cows, horse, fox, bears, eagles, hawks, run in the bamboo grass, and climb the rocks." :)
Today we started out the day with some yummy overnight oatmeal and then spent the day at home...inside mainly.
Ruy played outside for about 30 minutes but Liam only lasted about 2.5 seconds. He came back in saying "I'm getting really cold." And decided he would rather not go out again. I'm so thankful for the nice day we had yesterday and for all the fun they got to have outside.
Alanna just started loving throwing a bouncy ball back and forth. She giggles and claps and thinks it's just so much fun. Her, Liam and I spent some time this afternoon playing "throw the bouncy ball" together. Alanna has also started helping clean up. She loves to put her books back in her basket or if she sees me helping the boys clean up their toys she runs over and starts helping clean up too. It usually ends with her re-dumping the whole box of toys back out but at least she is wanting to be a helper :) Alanna also has had some serious bed-head going on lately. Whenever she wakes up it sticks up all over the place. We all get a good laugh out of it.
Liam has started drawing "A's" over the past 2 weeks. It's so neat seeing him learn new things and watching how excited he gets when he writes. He said "See my A Mom!!! It's a BIG A and I made it for you!" Then he hung it up on the frig for me.
Alanna decided to see what a bar of soap tastes like during her bath tonight. She made a terrible face but after I took the soap out of her mouth she tried to bite it again.
This evening after I got Alanna and Liam to bed, Ruy and I had a little "movie date night" and had popcorn and watched the old black and white Daniel Boone. He LOVED it. It's a series so there are several seasons we can watch. It was so fun snuggling with him. He's growing up so fast. I'm not ready for him to turn eight in a few weeks.
I'm hoping this weekend brings healthier kids and lots of fun!
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