Let's Talk about January

Now that it's February, I'd like to talk about January and what a lousy month it was. 

An Ear Infection

Remember how I said that I was probably going to post more Christmas stuff in mid-January?  Yeah.  Well, on Jan. 13th I came down with a little cold.  I felt generally crummy, but no big deal; I can handle a little sneezing and watery eyes.  Then it started getting better and I thought I was through it when my ears started being bugged.  I spent Tuesday night awake.  I cried for a long time.  Eventually, after realizing sleep was futile, I sat on the couch and read.  I fell asleep out of complete exhaustion (while sitting up, mind you) at 5:30 a.m.

That day I went to the doctor.  I know I'm sick when I pay $20 to see the doctor and then another $35 on meds.  I don't spend $55 on ANYTHING.  But it was well worth it to be able to sleep Wed. night (and every night thereafter). 

Even though I could sleep again, Thursday and Friday were awful.  Usually Rob has some flexibility in his schedule, and he can be home when I'm feeling lousy.  It wasn't the case on those days.  So I made sure my kids didn't die and threw them crackers for lunch and made frozen pizzas for dinner.  They were glorious days.

Anyways, I was getting better steadily after that, and I'm nearly 100% now.  I would say 100% without the qualification, but I still can't fully hear out of that ear.  It's still popping and obviously has liquid in it.  But whatever.  I'll take it.

What I've Learned from this Ear Infection:
1 - I can semi-take care of my kids with an ear infection.  When I have a fever, usually I faint and therefore can't get out of bed at all.  I was thankful that didn't have a fever and therefore could get out of bed, even if I did spend all day on the couch.
2 - Ears are wonderful things, when they work right.  When they don't, they're horrible things.
3 - After not hearing nuances in sound for over a week, it's fun when the hearing starts coming back.  Noticing what 2 ears really do for you:  most importantly, I've found, 2 ears adds depth to sound, and a sort of sharpness or clarity to it.
4 - If everyone heard their own voice echoing inside their head, no one would talk loudly.  Yelling at my kids was impossible for about a week, simply because it was physically painful to me to raise my voice at all.  (Really, I shouldn't yell at them anyways, but it is at times useful to be able to raise your voice.)
5 - "Accomplishing" things is a matter of perspective.  On Friday my accomplishment was not sending Teancom away in the morning because I was too tired (this was about my ONLY accomplishment all day).  On Monday my accomplishment was doing some laundry.  On Tuesday my accomplishment was finishing the laundry and the dishes that had piled up for over a week. 
6 - I ought to be a little more patient and understanding when my kids complain about ear pain.

What I'll Miss and Not Miss, All at the Same Time:
I'll miss the metallic version of everyone's voice.  When it was really bad, everyone's voice sounded like Mystique's.  You know, in X-Men.  And I've figured out what that effect is:  It's a two-tone effect.  For 2 days I heard every single tone as 2 slightly-dissonant tones.  It's really, really cool for voices.  If you can imagine, though, it's TERRIBLE for music.  If music always sounded to me like I did during those 2 days, I'd never listen to music again.

 A Stomach Issue

On Sunday the 24th, I stayed home from church.  I was feeling better, but even simple things were still exhausting.  It was good, then, that it was already the plan to stay home, since Tank woke up puking.  He threw up every 5 minutes for about an hour and a half. 

So Rob took Miciah and Elijah to church.  ...  They all walked back in the door about an hour and a half later.  I just looked at them, wondering what was going on, and Miciah said, "I threw up."  She didn't just throw up, though.  She ran out of sacrament meeting, then threw up in the hallway and tried so hard to not make a mess everywhere, to no avail.  Rob and a few other people took about half an hour to clean it up.  I was grateful to the others who helped, especially since I wasn't there to clean or comfort.

What's funny about this story is that it was so high profile.  Rob was conducting the meeting, so they had to excuse him.  No sneaking out the back door for the Thacker family!  ...  With everyone sick, Rob just came home and stayed home.  It was an admission of defeat.  We let the kids watch PBS kids all day, which was a real treat for them, since normally TV isn't allowed on Sundays.  It was a great day! 

Oh.  Poor Tank who had it so bad.  He had to wear pull-ups all day.  This was somewhat humiliating for him, since he hasn't needed a pull-up for day or night for months.  It was also upsetting to him to not be able to fully control his bowels.  After about the 10th messy pull-up, he came up to me.  He was looking so sad.  I said, "What's wrong?"  While looking at the ground he said, "I pooped AGAIN."  It was so sad and so funny all at the same time.  I gave him big hugs, and then put him in a clean pull-up.

But by the evening, both kids were fine and no one else got the bug, so it wasn't so horrible.  I mean, if you're going to have a stomach bug, a 12-hour stomach bug is the way to go!

February
...

By the time I was feeling better, and I mean like REALLY better, it was Thursday, Jan. 28th.  At that point I just wrote off the rest of January and declared it February.  I'm glad that it's now officially a new month.

Popcorn Magic Trick

Yesterday was a long day. Teancom woke up and asked for juice. No problem. I gave him juice. He came back a while later pointing to his mouth and calmly saying, "Mouff. Mouff." I didn't know what that meant until a few seconds later when he started puking. Ah. I see.

He was acting fine most of the day. A little cuddly, but not bad. He looked tired and took a good nap. But I must have changed his gross, nasty, not-normal diaper about 8 times. Each time he'd go another round he'd quickly look at me and say, "I stinky." Yes. Yes, you are. Rob changed the first one before he went to work and he was analyzing the leavings (why would you want to do that?) when Elijah said, "Dad? Can you just wrap it up?" Yeah. Cause it STINKS.

Elijah was hungry at about 4:00 p.m. (this is often when he realizes that he's hungry because he didn't eat lunch. I'm not a negligent parent, I just have been conditioned by Miciah to not give my children food unless they ask for it. So often my kids don't get lunch until later--especially Elijah who seemingly doesn't need lunch at noon like most kids do). He wanted a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. I told him that was fine but first I had to make sure he wasn't an alien! So I checked his ears (this is obviously the way to tell if someone is an alien or not). First one was clean. Then I checked the second one and discovered Elijah's Popcorn Magic Trick. Look at this ear and what do you see?

Nothing. But, Abracadabra:

Did you see that? You gotta look kinda close, I know. At first I thought, "We should get that ear wax out." Here's the ultra-close up:

Yeah. That's a popcorn kernel.

My friend said, "You should blog this. It's like a right-of-passage!" :) We called the nurse hotline for our insurance company. Asked if I needed to take him to the ER, or if I could attempt to take it out myself with some tweezers. The nurse said I should take him in to the ER. But my favorite part of the whole conversation was, "How old is he?" "He's 4." "Yeah, that's the right age." 4 is just the age for shoving things in your ears.

I called Rob and told him he needed to come straight home (he was going to stop by somewhere else first). He called a bunch of people and told them he wouldn't be at youth activities at the church (Bishopric had already been cancelled, which was nice for us). If they had kids they laughed with us. I mean, this is classic stuff, right? Popcorn in the ear. Nice.

... I have to reflect back on the last few weeks now, too. When did the popcorn get IN his ear? We had popcorn last on Saturday. On Saturday he also had a low-grade fever, but I have a hard time believing it was connected to this popcorn kernel. The last time we had popcorn before that was probably a week ago or so. So this could have been in his ear for a while, and I suspect that it had been. I recall seeing what I thought was ear wax earlier and thinking, "I should clean that out soon," and then forgetting about it for a while. He woke up on one night holding his ear. We're pretty slow-acting for maybe-ear infections, and no other symptoms showed up. ...

I asked him if he put popcorn in his other ear. He gave me this almost-offended type of look and said, "No, Mom." Of COURSE I didn't, Mom! How could you possibly think that? Oh, I don't know, Elijah. Maybe because you shoved one in the other ear? :) Too cute.

We have connections to lots of almost-doctors or just-barely-doctors who have equipment to do lots of stuff. So we called one of those and asked if, before running to the ER, we could take Elijah over there. Figured if he couldn't get it out, we'd still have to go to the ER, and if he could, it would very possibly save us hours upon hours. Rob took Elijah over and Elijah was very brave and very still, despite the look on his face that betrayed pain. We are so proud of him! Then Rob took him out on a daddy-son date (long overdue) to McDonald's. Not only did he like the meal and the time with daddy, he also brought home a SO COOL toy: a Batman car that shoots out a projectile weapon! Miciah loved it. Rob loved it. I loved it. Someone will get their eye popped out by it, I'm sure.

I stayed home with Miciah and sick Teancom. I made pizza for me and Miciah and gave Teancom two pieces of toast. It was the first thing I allowed him all day, after the juice. I did give him pedialyte, but that doesn't really count. He DEVOURED the toast. Then he asked for pizza and reluctantly I gave him a piece, which he also devoured. He was running around playing and having a great time.

Rob got home and we put the kids to bed. Part of our bedtime routine is reading stories, of course. He read a book to Elijah and put him to bed. Teancom was hyper and bugging Elijah by knocking on the door to the room. Rob invited him up on our bed where he was reading to Miciah. Teancom crawled onto Rob's lap and sat there peacefully until (I'm sure you saw this coming) he puked all over himself, Rob, and our bed (barely missing the book--so Miciah was happy about that). He starts crying. Miciah starts crying ("Who will read me the book?!"). Rob takes him into the bathroom and takes off the clothes while I strip the bed. Teancom also got our dry clean only comforter (figures). The puke got all the layers of our bed, including the covering to the mattress. I took that off, too. We sprayed it down with odor-killing stuff and slept last night on an air mattress in the living room. :)

As we were going to bed Rob said, "Pray for a relatively puke-free night." I looked at him and said, "Don't you have to believe that you'll actually receive what you asked for?" :) I didn't pray for a puke-free night in particular, but I did pray that Teancom would soon be better. The night was uneventful and Teancom has not puked all day today!! Hurray!

Fun times in parenting. Kids crack me up. I recommend getting a few.

Tamra