Do you hear what I hear?

After two months of an ear infection that just wouldn't quit, after six rounds of antibiotics, after 12 doctor's visits, one trip to the ER and one trip to urgent care, we got Toph ear tubes Thursday.

There he is in the pre-op part of the hospital in his baby gown. See that smile? The child had every right to be a complete grumpy Gus. First of all, he had to fast for eight hours prior to the procedure. I knew this was going to be a problem in and of itself because for the past two months, his ear pain has woken him multiple times during the night. On a good night, he would wake up screaming twice, on a bad night, four to five times. The only thing that would calm him down was if he nursed. So, when the doctor said an eight hour fast, I knew we were in for the longest eight hours of our lives. Wednesday night he woke up twice, once was at 10:00 and since it was more than eight hours from the procedure he could nurse. The second time he woke up at 1:30am and Matt fielded that one. He screamed for an hour and then refused to go in his crib, so he got to sleep the rest of the night with daddy in the guest bed.

So, when we woke him up at 5am to go to the surgery center, we thought we were in for a rough time.

We were wrong.

He was a gem the entire time there. During pre-op, he smiled and giggled and cooperated.

We visited with the doctor and the anesthesiologist and then the nurse whisked him away from us.

Mama did get a little teary as they took him back; I mean, I don't care that the procedure takes ten minutes, it's still surgery.

After a half hour, our awesome ENT came back and gave us his report. Toph has scarring on both sides of his ear drums and that the last two months it's been like Toph has been hearing through a tunnel, but that no permanent damage had been done. He said everyone wanted to take Toph home with them. I smiled at the compliment and said I just couldn't do without him.

After 15 more minutes, we were called back to post-op to see him. He was still sleeping from the anesthesia but woke up after about five minutes. The nurses had warned us that he would be cranky and fussy and very disoriented. I guess my baby is an anomaly because he sat straight up and looked at everyone and...smiled. Not one fuss came from his mouth.

He lost his gown in the process.


He was very intrigued by the monitor on his big toe...

And proceeded to take it off!

We topped off the morning (we got to the center at 5:30am and were out by 8am) by a wheelchair ride out. I remember our last wheelchair ride quite well-this time around, I didn't feel like I had been in a wreck and he was jumping and smiling on my lap.

God is good; He took care of our babe and delivered us to the other side of this ear infection saga. We also learned not to underestimate our awesome baby!

This and That

We may or may not be done with this ear infection.  We're still on antibiotics, we're still pulling on our ears, but the last two nights of sleep have been awesome and we've heard no moaning throughout the night.  We're eating like a champ (seriously, I don't know where it all goes but the kid loves his food), we're crawling reaaaalllly fast (seriously, they call me the baby-chaser), and we're pulling up on everything and then trying to climb it (seriously, he's giving me heart attacks).

Life is good.

Halloween was good, he was in bed by 6:00pm (a little early but since discovering his new found love of crawling and pulling up he thinks he's too cool to nap).  We went to the local pumpkin patch the week before Halloween:

Forget the pumpkins.  The kid's favorite part of the pumpkin patch was the hay.  Specifically, hay in the mouth.  What you don't see is mommy flapping her hands and rushing over to get the hay out of the mouth.

We have a new game around here.  We call it the boing game and it is played perfectly well with the doorstopper.

Remember my post about toys?  Yeah, this is one of the most entertaining things he's found in awhile.  And they're everywhere in our house! Instant entertainment.

Toph thinks his daddy is the funniest guy in the world.

 

He also thinks his mama is not a very good videographer.  He's right; I'm better in front of the camera. 

Toph loves to play with remote controls.  This worries his daddy, the king of the remote in this house.

We introduced rice rusks to Toph; he loves them and now will not let us eat a cracker or anything that resembles his rice rusks without giving him one.

On weekends, mama likes to try and sleep in, but Toph doesn't know the difference between weekdays and weekends; he only knows he nurses at 5:30am.  He then plays everyday in his crib after that. He will go to sleep however if he comes in bed with mama and daddy for the rest of the morning.  So, on weekends that's what he gets to do.

Guess who likes to take pictures of this?  Daddy, that's who.

Speaking of sleeping babies, ever seen one who's fallen asleep in the middle of dinner?

Now you have.

You're welcome.

No Grace For My Imagination

Sometimes you just need to read certain things; this morning it was a passage from one of my faves. We know my imagination can run wild; I've blogged about this before. With the trials we are going through now with Toph's ear infection (and thrush, and high c. diff levels), it is very easy for me to "go there." You know, worry and play the "what if" game. It's honestly a very tiring and none to pleasing task to fret; in fact, it sucks the joy right out of you and believe me, there is plenty for me to be joyous about.

This passage helps me; in fact, I'll be reading it a over and over again today; then praying about it so that I might actually apply it.

No Grace for “What If?”
2010 at 2:30 pm | by Carolyn Mahaney
Filed under Biblical Womanhood Fear Motherhood Series Current Series

"What do our mothering fears have in common? They are all in our imagination.

Our fertile minds generate countless scenarios whereby one calamity or another befalls our children: What if my son rebels when he hits the teenage years? What if my daughter doesn’t want to be my friend when she grows up? What if my son gets in a car accident? What if my daughter is diagnosed with leukemia?

After thirty-four years of mothering, I’ve discovered that most of the bad things I imagined never actually came true. But there have been other trials—ones I never anticipated.

That’s why Elisabeth Elliot’s wise advice has been invaluable to me in fighting fear: “There is no grace for your imagination.”

God does not sprinkle grace over every path my fear takes. He does not rush in with support and encouragement for every doomsday scenario I can imagine.

No, instead He warns me to stay off those paths: “Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil” (Ps. 37:8).

There is no grace for our imagination. That’s why our fearful imaginings produce bad fruit: anxiety, lack of joy, futile attempts to control.

There is no grace for our imagination. But God does promise sufficient, abundant grace for every real moment of our lives. That’s why the Proverbs 31 woman can “laugh at the future in contrast with being worried or fearful about it” (ESV Study Bible note on Pr. 31:25)

There is no grace for our imagination. But there will be grace for our mothering future--the moment it arrives."

"But God does promise sufficient, abundant grace for every real moment of our lives."

It's really nice to know that I can turn this imagination station of mine off. There is no grace for it and honey, there is sufficient and abundant grace for every real moment of my life.

I will also give thanks today because my little guy is 7 months old. Seven months old, smiling, laughing, happy to be with me, no matter where we are. We spent two hours in the hospital clinic yesterday to get an injection of ear infection antibiotic and he was happy as a clam. Yes, there is sufficient and abundant grace in my life.

Since When?

Since when do I go 10 days without blogging?

Since my baby got an ear infection (actually, the same one that just won't go away) and a stomach bug on the same day.  A week ago today Matt and I were just now going to bed because we had spent the hours of 1am-4am at the pediatric ER.  That was the stomach bug and possibly a bad reaction to a new antibiotic introduced to fight the ear infection.

This week has been the longest one of my life; as a mother you will do anything to take your child's pain away and when it just seems to linger, it can make you feel out of control, guilty, sad, crazy and angry.  After every bout of vomit, diahrrea, ear pulling and screaming in pain, I just want to stomp into our doctor's office, grab her by the neck and yell, "MAKE HIM BETTER!!!!" (And we all know I am not this type of person, but I am reaching my limit.)  I know that's incredibly unreasonable but the kid isn't getting better.  They told us it could last up to two weeks but seriously.  He's breastfed.  In my mind, that means he should have an immune system of steel.  He won't take solids, and he is just not his normal self.

This is the hard part of being a mom, I know this.  He is totally incapable of making himself feel better and he is incapable of telling us how he feels or what we can do to fix it.  He needs me more than ever, even when it's just so he can scream in my arms or vomit all over me or poop all over me.  One thing I have learned is that as a mother, when your baby is throwing up on you, your first instinct isn't to point the baby in a way so that the vomit won't get on you, the first instinct is to cradle the baby closer to you because you know how bad it feels to throw up.  Ugh!

I just want to take it from him...I'd take all this pain he's going through gladly.  But no one seems to be letting me do that.

I just looked at the monitor while he's sleeping and he just pulled his ear in his sleep.  Hear that? It's my heart, just breaking for him.

Rough Couple of Days

On his six month birthday, Toph got sick! We're talking constant crying, fever, runny nose, heavy congestion, and him giving us the stink eye every time we brushed against his ears.  Yikes.  You know what that means.

Sunday night was the worst! He wouldn't sleep unless he was sleeping on one of us, and even then the sleep was fitful, with him moaning, waking up frequently.  The kicker was when he refused to eat.  Um, the one thing I care about the most and spend a lot of time thinking about is what he eats, when he eats and how much he eats.  So, the fact that he was not eating did not sit well with me.  We went to the doctor and sure enough, double ear infection.  He refused Pedialyte, which was rude of him considering I went and bought him a special sippy cup just for him.  He didn't refuse a bottle, which hurt my feelings, but the doctor said it was because it was too much work for him to nurse and that it hurt his ears too much.  Poor baby. I guess bottles are less work.  After a whole day of sleeping and crying, he finally showed signs of his old self at about 6pm last night.  Right now, he's sleeping it out:

No, I don't put him in his crib like that. That's all him, the little wiggle worm.

Oh yes, they gave me antibiotics that I must administer twice a day. May I just say that giving a 6 month old gross antibiotics is one of the most unsavory jobs I have ever had. He gets mad, I get sad, and we have nine more days of it.