Ups and Downs

The end of September was pretty rough in our household. It started with Noah catching a cold which led to an ear infection. The doctor gave us a prescription for antibiotics. A week later, the cold was gone, and we thought the ear infection was too, but he started throwing up. A day later, we could tell his ear was bothering him again. Back to the doctors who said it was all viral and to just keep an eye on his temp. When his ear started to drain that weekend, and he developed a fever, we had a feeling it was more than viral. We went to the doctors again on Monday and a prescription for a new antibiotic along with some ear drops because the ear infection was back, only in both ears, AND and ear drum had ruptured. I can't even describe how guilty I felt, knowing how much pain he must have been in. By the end of the week, he still wasn't himself and the second ear had started to drain. Darren tried to get the doctor to do a culture on ears, but the doctor claimed it wouldn't affect the treatment and instead gave us a super strong antibiotic to try.

Thankfully it did finally work, but we have learned from the experience. We are Noah's parents, and we know him better than anyone. Noah does not normally whine or cry unless he is feeling very unwell (he seems to have a high tolerance for pain - a common preemie characteristic), and he never wakes up during the night unless he is really sick. To be fair to our pediatrician, we were never actually able to see him during this illness. Two visits were on short notice and his schedule couldn't accommodate us, and two visits were on days he was not in the office. Instead we had to see other doctors in the practice that did not know Noah. I do honestly believe things may have been different if we had seen our doctor, especially for the last three visits.

We seem to finally be over the worst though. He is back at day care and loving it. He is making great gains with his motor skills, he knows how to put balls in the basketball hoop and the other toys that come with them, and he can put his rings on his stacker. He gets so excited when we do it together, and he says "Yay!" with me when he gets it in/on just right. He likes to bounce a ball across the coffee table to me, and when I bounce it back, he almost always catches it. He climbs stairs like monkey, and is super sneaky at it, so we have to keep a very close eye on him whenever we let him out of the gated living room. In fact, he is pretty sneaky with anything he knows he is not supposed to be doing. After we say no to something, he will stop and act like he is going to do something else, stop, go back to what he was originally doing and watch us with a big smile on his face, waiting to see if we stop him again. When he is on our laps with a bottle, he likes to look at our ears, and if we turn to look at him, he will push on our chins so he can see our ear again. He likes to play "beep, beep" with our noses too. :)

He is eating lots of big boy foods now (only by finger though, he won't let us feed him much more than yogurt or fruit and cereal). His favorites are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, banana, bacon (maybe he is channeling Elvis?), toast with yummy toppings (peanut butter, jam, or cinnamon sugar) and pretty much anything Darren and I are eating at the time - but it has to be something we are actually eating. He loves to eat things from our own plates/bowls like a little bird, but if we try to give it to him on his tray he is NOT interested!

It is amazing to watch him change and grow. He is looking more and more like a little boy and less like a baby. It makes me both sad and excited! As each month goes by, I think to myself, this is my favorite age, only to find out it gets even better the next month. This will be the first year we take him out to trick or treat, and he will be collecting change for the Ronald McDonald House. His memere is making him a Flintstones "Bam Bam" costume to go with the plastic bat he got at the beach this summer (which he loves to swing around everywhere). And we are so excited for this Christmas, now that he will have a better idea of what is going on and what to do with all that paper (tear it up, of course!). He will have a new baby cousin by then too, and we can't wait to take pictures of them together!

Even though there are bumps in the road with illnesses and other stresses, I have to say that here on the Brann Rollercoaster, life is good!