I come home from work one night and Kate starts telling me about her morning being taken care of by my mom. "Nana has two dogs!" she says emphatically, holding up two fingers. "No, Kate, Nana doesn't have any dogs, sweetie." I say to the misguiided toddler. "Yes," she says, "Two dogs. All gone, " she clarifies, waving her arms back and forth to make herself clear. Ah, yes, two dead dogs. Got it. "One is Teddy," she tells me.
About ten minutes later, her dad asks her, "What should we name the baby?" She quickly answers, "Teddy."
Second story: Tubes.
Saturday morning the kid's got an eye that's sealed itself shut in stickiness. The grossness of parenting reveals itself to me. As I'm pealing open her eye, we decide she's sick. Pink eye, we declare, having been taught this by the trusty internet. I leave a message for the doctor to clarify if we need to do anything, and then head out for a weekend retreat, leaving Daddy P to manage the sick toddler. (The joys of having two parents in a house!)
I return hours later to find out that a) she doesn't have pink eye, b) sinuses can make your eyes weep, and c) she has an ear infection. Daddy P argued with the doctor about antibiotics. She's on this nasty one for the third time and it turns her stomach inside out. The doctor was adamant though, and she is the doctor, so at some point you have to decide if you trust your parenting gut or the doctor more. (She's on the antibiotic.)
The doctor then looked over her chart and broke the news: since her first ear infection, she's had one roughly every 2-3 weeks. (I LOVE daycare!) And, so, the doctor then said the word we hear from all daycare parents: tubes. Apparently, her ears don't know how to drain and will continue to become infected for the rest of her life (or something?) if we don't do this. More seriously, she'll be on more and more doses of antibiotics with continued infections, and then the doctor made the most compelling argument even though she didn't know it: she hypothesized that Kate's 2 lb. weight gain in this past year is due to the fact she has been on these heavy duty drugs for the last six months of her life and has not ability to stomach food. She said she saw a similar situation with another patient who "flourished" after ear tubes, having once been in the 50th percentile height and 3rd %ile weight.
So, ENT here we come... we shall see what this brings.
Pictures from our snow day in Austin:
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