Ears, Nestor

Whenever Anja has ear infections, all I can think of is "Ears, Nestor." Not that Nestor, The Long Eared Christmas Donkey had recurrent ear infections... in fact, I think throughout the half-hour film his ears remain quite healthy. It's just that I feel so sorry for her and her poor ears. Thursday night was very bad with her waking up crying every half hour or so, not taking a bottle, and being generally inconsolable. By the end of the night she was asleep with her hand over her ear. Not that we hadn't figured it out by then... but still, it was sad. I took her in in the morning to a doctor on the west side because her regular pediatritian was working up at the hospital that morning and I didn't want to wait until the afternoon. The doctor we saw might have been a wonderful man, but he was pretty old and English was not his native language. Anja's persistant screaming wasn't making communication between us any easier, especially since Anja gets her bad ears from me and my bad ears have led to moderate hearing loss. (That's a joke.) (And also, Anja doesn't just get the curse of bad ears from me--her daddy was making visits to Dr. Beesley's office for ear infections just as often as I was. Another fact that makes it amazing that we didn't meet before we were teenagers!) So anyway, we didn't beat around the bush about anything. He listened to her all over, checked her ears, and her left ear was infected so we got an antibiotic.

However, on Friday night we went through all the misery again--this time she was holding her right ear. Poor baby!!!! So now she spends her days with her fingers in her ears, although she's generally happy as long as she's not lying down. So last night was another difficult one, but hopefully by tonight things will be improving. In fact, last night I brought her into our bed around 2:30 or so and slept holding her upright. She slept pretty well for the rest of the night, snuggled between us, even waking up a few times and putting herself back to sleep. She ended up at the bottom of the bed with us at the top, but at least she slept better.

Actually yesterday evening was pretty bad. She woke up from her afternoon nap after about 45 minutes and NEVER went back to sleep. I put her down for bed at 7:00 and she fell to sleep instantly. She woke up screaming at 7:30 and I couldn't do anything to make her happy. During this time, Martin was out at Target picking up my sister's wallet that had been left there. (We told her we'd pick it up when we went out there earlier in the day, and she'd written a note giving us permission, but I left the note on the table! So Martin went back alone in the evening.) Eventually she cried and cried until she was full of phlegm and started coughing and gagging, which led to throwing up. I took her downstairs and we were both all stinky and covered in barf and she was still majorly upset, but we sat in the rocking chair and read every book on her bookshelf until Martin got home. I had called him after she threw up to tell him what was going on. When he got home, he'd bought Anja a Schleich Draft Horse family! What a silly guy!!! She's only 15 months old, and already he's bringing her sick presents. But I think he's a good dad. Also, he had gone to the hardware store and while there he picked up some carpenter pencils, the flat kind, because Anja likes to hold writing utensils flat, but that means they don't mark. He thought those would be better for her. How thoughtful!

So that's what we've been up to this weekend. Anja's daytime mood is not hindered by her ears, it's only at night that they really seem to hurt her. I count myself lucky to be an adult who still gets ear infections. I think it might be harder for me to be sympathetic about something I couldn't see. However, the fact that since I've been married I have cried during an ear infection and not cried at all during labor... it makes me understand her a little more and not mind that she's up screaming for most of the night. I'm pretty sure that if I didn't have frequent reminders of my own, I would be more easily frustrated. Because it seems like no big deal; "Oh, kids get ear infections all the time, it's nothing." But it's not nothing! It's horrible!!

Anyway, enough about ears.

I'm really lucky to have Martin. This morning we sat behind a girl at church who had two little boys, a maybe-four-year-old, and a baby who was younger than Anja, but not a newborn. She was by herself with them and having a very hard time. At one point the bigger boy had to go potty so she took them to the bathroom and when she came back, she realized that the little one had lost a shoe somewhere along the way. I felt bad for her.

Oh! This is something I've been meaning to post about. It's amazing what people will say to you. First of all, I know that Anja doesn't look very old, but she will be between 16 and 17 months old when this new baby is born. That does not seem to me like a super tiny age gap--it seems normal, especially for the first two children. Anyway, last weekend when we went to Panera with Tony, the woman who rang us up was very surprised to see that we had Anja and were going to have another one. All she could say was, "Oh my... oh wow. You have this one and are going to have another? Oh my. Wow." THANKS, LADY! What is WITH people?!? Martin just smiled and said, "Yeah, one for each of us!" and that was pretty good. I never know what to say when people give their reactions. Usually I'd like to snarl at them or slap them. Oh, and that horrible lady at the grocery store who seems to be the only one who ever works there in the mornings... ugh. She isn't very friendly, but she tries to be. I think she should stop trying. She saw Anja and said to her, "Looks like you're going to get a sibling... about any day now." Ha. "Actually, I have two months left." Luckily, I remembered that she asked me if I was due any day when I had about two months left with Anja too. So I didn't hate her too much.

And as long as I'm writing this ridiculously rambling post that probably everyone has stopped reading by now, I'll go on to say that I was paging through my journal from the time when I was pregnant with Anja. I like to keep up with reading it so I can compare notes. Evidently on September 24th (exactly two months before Anja's due date) I weighed in at 137lbs. I don't weight that much yet!! Hip hip hooray!!!!

My mom's calling me.