March 19, 2007
I had this nice little entry all started, a couple of nights ago. As I remember, the opening sentence was something like, "There is water on for tea, everyone else in the house is asleep, and things are going well." I typed up a little retrospective of our trip to the (extremely cold and windy) St. Patrick's Day parade and subsequent outing to The Muppet Movie on the big screen. Then before I was done with the final paragraph, I heard crying coming from upstairs, and unusually enough, it sounded like Zeke. So I left the laptop downstairs and went to go check on things. Zeke had woken up with severe ear pain and gone to get Keith. It hurt so much that he kept bursting into tears in between efforts to tell me what hurt and where.
I went to find the Motrin, and Keith took Zeke into the bathroom and turned the hot shower on to steam the place up and maybe help clear out any potential congestion that might be contributing to the problem. I was thinking, of course this is happening on a Saturday night when the doctor's office is not even open for another full day. After about half an hour of steamy bathroom, the Motrin kicked in, and Keith laid down next to Zeke in his bed to help him get to sleep. I went back downstairs.
A few minutes later, I heard an extremely loud crashing sound from the vicinity of Zeke's room and dashed upstairs again. Zeke's bed had collapsed. Yes, collapsed. The supporting slats had all fallen out for some reason, and the box springs and mattress were lying cockeyed in the middle of the whole mess. Nobody was hurt, although it was very surprising in a bad way. Zeke, looking very put-upon at this point, went to go sit against the wall of his room while Keith and I reassembled the bed.
After this, I went back downstairs just long enough to have a glass of iced tea and shut my laptop down, having forgotten entirely about my St. Patrick's Day entry, which is now lost to the ages.
The next day, Sunday, Zeke slept in until 11 AM. This is a child that routinely wakes up between 7:30 and 8:00 in the morning. His internal schedule does not change with the seasons, Daylight Savings Time, or cross-country travel. Between 7:30 and 8:00, he rolls out of bed, pads downstairs, and if nobody else is up yet, makes himself buttered toast. But Sunday he slept until 11:00. Then he came downstairs, collapsed on the couch underneath a blanket, and watched a video for a while until falling asleep again around 1:30. Keith took him upstairs to his bed, and he slept again until like 6 or so. At this point, I am thinking, oh yes, we are definitely calling the doctor tomorrow morning.
So, this morning I got up, fully expecting Zeke to be lethargic and complaining of ear pain, but no, at 8:10 he was already downstairs eating his buttered toast and asking if we could go to the library today. He said his ear was "a little stuffy" but did not hurt. Hmm. I called the doctor anyway, which at 8:30 AM on a Monday morning meant waiting on hold for fifteen minutes, but a mother does what a mother has to do. When a nurse finally picked up the other end of the line, I explained the whole progression of Zeke's weird little virus or whatever the hell it was: He had a fever last weekend accompanied by lethargy, then was okay on Monday, back to being lethargic on Tuesday, fine Wednesday through Saturday afternoon, woke up with the piercing ear pain on Saturday night, lethargic Sunday, seemed okay this morning. The nurse said, well, maybe he's turned the corner, and suggested keeping an eye on him and calling back if he seemed to be acting sick again. She pointed out, wisely, that it was probably better to keep him away from the myriad of germs at the doctor's office unless strictly necessary.
He's been fine all day. He raced around the house chasing his sister and vice versa, he complained bitterly at naptime, we all went to the library, and he went to bed around his normal time. I guess whatever it was really did pass. I don't know if that was the world's shortest-lived ear infection, or a burst eardrum, or just some wax buildup (he had some really grotacular waxy discharge out of the "bad" ear on Sunday) or what, but I'm glad it's (apparently) over.
We had fun at the St. Patrick's Day parade, by the way.
Posted at March 19, 2007 11:11 PM
Posted by: Laura at March 19, 2007 11:30 PM
Ugh, all FOUR of us have had an ear infection (Tristan had a wicked double ear infection) as well as sinus infections and bronchitis in the last 3 weeks. It was the first time either Alyssa or Tristan had ever had an ear infection and first time both were on antibiotics. Tristan is on his 2nd round now! Sheesh. We also had the temperature that went up and down and up and down. I swear I've heard of more ear infections in the last month than I've heard of in years. Strange. Glad everyone is on the mend!
Posted by: Heidi at March 20, 2007 1:18 AM
Hmmm. We know so many people who've had colds/viruses one after the other, including our own very healthy kids. It has been an odd year in Seattle-area, too. Hope you're all healthy now!
Posted by: Bibi at April 2, 2007 1:52 PM
My kids (5, 4, and 1) had some freaky illness last week. They had a fever for about 10 hours, then started complaining of stomach pain/cramping every morning from about 4 am until 10 am. Then they were better for the rest of the day. So as soon as you think they're better, they're sick again. It hit the little one the worst, and she had a rash and vomiting with it and was extremely lethargic and sleepy. I guess it's the last hoorah for the viruses this winter. At least, I'm hoping it's the last!