We’re back from the hospital, ears freshly tubed. Evie is fine, you would never know anything happened at all. At first they said that we wouldn’t be able to be with her when she went to sleep, but they ended up letting Sara go back with her.
Here’s to no more ear infections!
And, as usual, a nurse said she looked like Shiloh Pitt.
First, let me just say 😦
So, in addition to just being generally sick every week for the last year or so, Evie has been dealing with a rash of ear infections. As you recall from my other posts, this originally started back on Halloween. So it has been over 2 months, several antibiotics and many, many doctors appointments, and after all of that time she still has fluid in her ears.
The surgery to put tubes in her ears is scheduled for the 13th. It is a pretty simple procedure, it supposedly only takes 5 minutes, but you always have risks with anesthesia and stuff. Still, it really isn’t much to worry about; I myself had tubes put in 3 times when I was little. They should fall out by themselves in about a year, so the hope is we make it through this winter and next with them.
As I’ve said, I had many, many problems with my ears when I was little, so I should have seen this coming. But it stinks and I don’t have to like it!
In regards to the title of this post, I have always been enamored with the way the titles of Rocky and Bullwinkle episodes always had “blah blah” or “blah blah”, usually involving a pun or two of some sort. Something hilarious like “Axe Me Another or Heads You Lose!” I would title all of my blog posts in such a fashion except I am not nearly that clever. And as for the series of tubes thing, perhaps you don’t live on this planet (planet nerd I mean) and you missed the whole series of tubes meme. Why in god’s name am I spending so much time explaining the title of this post? Who knows. But just so you know it is this sort of agonizing that causes me to spend hours and hours to bring you high quality posts such as this.
::sigh:: Okay, I’ll stop now.
So, I haven’t really given a life update in a while, so I’m going to throw a bunch of stuff in here.
The Saturday a week before Thanksgiving, we participated in a parenting first: taking our child to the emergency room. It wasn’t really an emergency per say, but Evie was showing a lot of signs of an ear infection which she had just gotten over (so we thought) and we were supposed to leave that day for a week of vacation. I thought this was a rite of passage because when I was little we had to go to the emergency room like a million times (mostly due to ear infections), but Sara said they didn’t go very often when she was little. Anyway, it took a while but everybody was nice and it wasn’t the horror story I was envisioning. The doctor said the ears were a little pink but she couldn’t say for certain that she had an ear infection. Luckily they gave us the antibiotic anyway since her eardrum ruptured less than 24 hours later! They also gave us a handy sheet with information on it such as how to say some of the tougher medical words (in FECT shun in case you were wondering). The second antibiotic gave her bad diarrhea for a week (“thanks dad!” – future Evie) but seemed to clear things up. However, at her follow up it looks like there still may be a problem, we were referred to an Ear Nose and Throat doctor. The result of that appointment was yet another round of antibiotics and the possibility of tubes in her ears come January. Everyone in my family has ear trouble. Apparently we have small ear canals which makes fluid sit longer which is a breeding ground for bacteria. So it looks like she has a legacy to live up to, unfortunately! 😦
So we went to MI where I deposited Sara and Evie for the week before coming back to work (hence the temporary bachelor-hood). I thought I would have lots of time to relax, but I had quite a list of things to do, so it went pretty fast. I did catch up on a lot of sleep though. While she was gone, Sara got her haircut really short and donated it to Beautiful Lengths. She’s super cute. 🙂
I caught back up to them at my mom’s house where everybody (including Sara’s family) came for Thanksgiving. Good times, good eats, and Evie learned a new religion:
We also managed to hit up my dad’s, where Sara collected many sticks and pine cones which can be hard to come by in Chicago, and Science Central. Science Central suffered an unfair comparison since we had just recently been to the Please Touch Museum, but it was actually a pretty good time. We spent longer there than we expected to.
Evie tried her first taste of bacon, which was a momentous occasion! She liked it of course. She also tried something else:
You probably can’t tell from this picture, but she really liked that as well.
Although she is still sleeping through the night, she has had some setbacks after vacation. She has woken up once a couple of nights and also seems to have decided that 4 a.m. is a pretty good time to get up. Although we don’t let her get out of her crib until 5:30, sometimes she just stays awake and plays or cries. Which means I am back to sleeping on the floor sometimes. Hopefully we are done with that and back on track though after just a few nights. Last night she slept until 5:30 (whoever thought I would be happy to “sleep in” until 5:30?!)
She knows well over 200 words now and she’s making 3 word sentences. She is especially into Christmas words at the moment like pistmas tree, santa, snowman, angel, reindeer, snowflake, sled, etc. She can recognize about 6 colors; blue, green, pink, orange, purple and brown but she doesn’t always get those right. She can “read” (i.e. recognize) about 6 written words; stop, zoo, Evie, mommy, daddy and taxi. That part is the most amazing to me. I know that she’s not really reading per say, but it still seems like you aught not to be able to recognize words by 16 months. The doctor said she is speaking somewhere between a 2 year old and a 3 year old level.
I try not to brag about my daughter or get too excited about things, especially since I don’t have any frame of reference about how much a kid is supposed to be doing, but I suppose writting all of that on my blog is bragging a *little* bit. 🙂
This year for Halloween, we got something kind of scary…last night, Evie’s eardrum ruptured.
Now apparently it is not as bad as it sounds, and it is actually quite common. In fact, it is apparently the best thing that could have happened to her because before it happened she was in a lot of pain and supposedly when it ruptures it releases the pressure causing her to feel better. The doctor said it should re-seal in a day or two.
Anyway, she has severe infections in both ears. I feel really bad for her since I had chronic ear infections when I was little. I had tubes in my ears 3 times and probably had hundreds of ear infections through childhood. As a result I really really hate them and know what she is going through. I’m really hoping that this is just an isolated incident and she didn’t inherit my tiny ear canals.
Saying she has her daddy’s ears isn’t necessarily a compliment.
I haven’t had a chance to update lately because I have been wicked sick. Sicker than I have been in a long time, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, Evie had been sick before me and all I could think about was, “I sure hope this isn’t how she felt!” Also unfortunately, we were in Fort Wayne for the Johnny Appleseed Festival, and it always sucks to be sick anywhere besides home. To say nothing of a brutal 3 hour ride home. (Although, someone did point out that I have probably spent more time being sick in that house than anywhere else on earth) I would also like to state for the record that Ron’s apple pie tastes exactly the same coming out as going in!
Johnny Appleseed was pretty cool. I didn’t get an apple dumpling like I wanted, or any food for that matter due to sickness, but we did manage to eat apple baked french toast for breakfast and apple pie for dinner, so I think I made up for it. I was kind of concerned that it wouldn’t be as big as I remembered since I haven’t been there since I was quite small, but it was pretty huge. We didn’t buy anything (it was indeed as expensive as I remembered), but we had a good look around and also saw Casey, Margaret and Isaiah who is only 1 month older than Evie.
Speaking of Evie, we had a discussion about how many words she can say. We had been saying 25 words as a rough estimate, but when we sat down and actually counted them, we came up with I think 63. She certainly understands a lot more, but those are the ones she will spontaneously and reliably say, and not counting things she just repeats after you say them. She loves books more and more every day (a child after my own heart) and practically doesn’t play with any other toys. She knows all of her books and you can ask for them by name and she can go over to the shelf and find them and bring them to you. This is including her set of alphabet books that she got for her birthday, but only certain letters that she likes. For example, she can always find ‘O’ (octopus, orange and owl to which she likes to say “hoo hoo”) but other letters give her trouble.
She is eating a little better especially if it is finger foods. She’s not very good with a spoon. However, soon after a meal starts she starts yelling, “Chee! Chee!” because all she wants to eat at every meal is cheese (as I said, a child after my own heart). You have to be careful what you say because you might accidentally remind her of cheese and once she gets going, she wants nothing else. It is the same for water.
She still loves shoes and clothes and spends a lot of time ineffectually trying to dress herself with anything that resembles clothes. She doesn’t even come close. My mom gave her a purse and she likes to carry that around now too. She’s going to be something when she gets old enough to really know about clothes!
I almost hate to say it because I don’t want to jinx it, but the last two nights rather than rocking and singing her to sleep, I have put her in her bed and read her a story until she fell asleep! Granted, she was very tired both nights, but if that sticks that would be a huge deal! But of course, now that I have told all of you it can’t possibly happen.
That is all.
Oh, P.S. just because I forgot to mention Talk Like a Pirate Day, doesn’t mean I didn’t celebrate! And even if my reoccurring calendar appointment didn’t remind me, I always have people who do.
Shane Halbach 