A New Chapter

Friday morning was cold! Our household awoke before dawn (ok, not that hard to do these short, wintry days...) and we had been up and moving for more than an hour before I checked the temperature for the first time: 29 degrees (F)!! It was clear, quiet, and the stars were still shining when our babysitter arrived at 6:15 a.m. Yes, really, a babysitter at 6:15. Leaving our big boy behind to enjoy playing with the sitter, we bundled our little one into the warmed-up van and headed to the SurgiCenter to get tubes put in his ears.
 He has had an ear infection, the same ear infection, since the end of September. We did three rounds of antibiotics and went to see the doctor every 10 days or so. Every time, my pediatrician would look in my little bear's ears, shake his head, and say, "they still look awful". Just before Thanksgiving, we saw an ENT specialist and got the answer we had hoped for - tubes!
 Although we wanted the tubes and it's a relatively minor procedure, we were still quite nervous about it because he had to be put under general anesthetic. I also found it a particularly challenging age to put him through this because he is old enough to know what's happening, know he doesn't like it, and get scared...but he's not old enough for us to explain things to him. We couldn't tell him what was going to happen or why.
 Managing his fear and having to deny him things he was asking for (like water) turned out to be the hardest part of the experience. I was worried that watching him be put under would be really hard for me, but I was so well-prepared by the doctors and nurses as well as talking with friends who'd experienced it, that I didn't feel the fear that I'd expected.
 Here are some photos of the things I will remember most:

  In prep, he started asking for water...so hard to tell him no and not be able to explain why!

 Tiny hospital socks. I've had so many of these myself but it was a bit of a jolt to see them on my baby boy.

After a successful procedure, he was fussy, confused, and sleepy...and not a fan of tubes and wires!

One shoe off, one shoe on. He kept asking and asking for his shoes because he knew that if he could put his shoes on we could go. I finally put one on but had to leave the other one off for the nurses to continue to use the heart monitor.

Toe monitor

After he was released, we headed home to start recovery. Sleepy boy crashed out on Mama:

 We are now treating the ear infection with ear drops and he should be completely better by mid-week. He has already started sleeping better at naptime and both Daddy & I have noticed that he's talking more - trying out new words.
I am so thankful for good medical care. Thankful that we could do something about his pain instead of just having to watch him suffer through it. We are glad to be turning the page on a new chapter.