A good day

We had Annabella's ENT follow-up this morning, and she can hear! Really, the difference was night and day. She was yammering on through the test and was still looking for the really quiet sounds. I could barely hear some of the sounds over top of her talking, but she was still looking for them. So that was pretty much awesome.

I almost missed it, but I got to be with my baby at 12:21pm. I held her in my arms and told her how much I love her.

We made chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. Jas and I sang happy birthday and gave Annabella her cupcake. She played with it for what seemed like minutes before finally putting a morsel in her mouth. One bite was all it took. The feeding frenzy began. She had this goofy smile that seemed to say "What is this and where has it been my whole life?" She just kept ramming more in.

Then we got her hand print in a clay mold we have. One of Annabella's Grandmas got us a set of molds for ages 1-5. It took several (okay, maybe a couple dozen) tries, but we got the hand print. And I will cherish it forever.

Then we played games on the floor in the kitchen. Annabella was a couple feet away from me, and Jas and I were cheering her to take a step. After a few minutes, she stood up and walked the 7 steps it took to get to me. My heart, already swollen with pride, swelled up even more. I held my baby and told her how proud I was, and that she would always be my baby.

I really can't ask for a better day.

Pix of Annabella with cake coming soon.

One year ago today

One year ago today, at 12:21pm, I was introduced to my favorite person on the planet. I looked at her and kissed her head and fell in love. Everything she did was magic, and we treated her like our perfect little china doll.

I had no idea how fully she would change my life, and I had no idea my heart could hold so much love. Now our precious little baby isn't so little anymore. And she's not a china doll anymore either. She's our adventurous, curious, smiley, happy, determined, little toddler. And we couldn't love her more.Annabella, I hope the next year brings you lots of fun, lots of mischief, lots of laughs. I can't wait to see how you grow. No matter what though, you'll always me mommy's little girl.

First Steps

Annabella took her first steps for Dada yesterday. Mama wasn't there. Mama was home 5 minutes later. To say Mama is bummed that she missed the big moment is an understatement. To say Mama is beaming with pride is also an understatement.

Way to go baby.

Mistake

On Wednesday, September 9, Dr Raymond D Cook put tubes in my baby's ears.

On Friday, September 11, Dr Raymond D Cook drove drunk on a road, not far from my house, 40mph over the speed limit. He crashed his Mercedes into a 20 year old ballerina's Hyundai, killing her. (Article)

I'm not certain how to process this.

But I am sad. I am sad for the victim, and I'm sad for Dr Cook. Her life is gone. His isn't far from it, at least not the life he knew.

And I'm scared. Because Dr Cook seemed like a genuinely good guy, and he was very reassuring, and I trusted him. And now I don't know if that trust was misplaced. I have no reason to believe that he's been anything but a great doctor in all of our dealings with him. But really, how would I know? Did we luck out that my baby is fine? Did this man, who I liked, who put others at risk by getting behind the wheel after drinking do the same with the knife? I just don't know. And my baby is fine. So I'm not worried that he screwed something up with her, because I don't think he did. But it's my job to protect her, and once again, I should have done better.

And I'm confused. Because I have other friends who drink and drive when they shouldn't. Who can't seem to control the drink. Who are one bad night away from throwing their lives away. They are good people. Good people with a problem. Not unlike Dr Cook.

And I don't know why, maybe it's just because I met him and liked him, but anger isn't what I'm feeling. I see a man who made a tragic mistake, and he and his family are paying dearly for it.

Date night!

Jas and I went on an actual date Sunday night. A date where we put on nice clothes. And ate a fancy meal with each other. And didn't worry about being home for the bedtime ritual.

And Annabella did great! This for me is the most exciting part, because it means that maybe, just maybe, we can do this again in the future.

For our date night, we hired one of her daycare teachers to come over and watch her, which was great because we trust Miss Kim and we figured Annabella wouldn't be freaked out with Miss Kim being the one putting her to bed since she sees her all the time. The not-so-great part of hiring Miss Kim was the price tag: $12/hour! Sure she's a professional and all, but I remember getting paid like $3/hour when I would babysit. So even though having her over gave us peace of mind, I don't think we'll be using her sitting services on a regular basis. But now that we've seen that Annabella can handle the bedtime routing with somebody else, hopefully we can try it again with a cheaper option :)

Ears

Warning: Some of what I talk about below is just gross. Read at your own risk.

I think we might be finally beating this last round of ear infections. Finally. The tubes and antibiotic ear drops weren't enough. Annabella's now on an oral antibiotic called Vantin in addition to the ear drops.

For those of you keeping track, she's already been on Augmentin and Omnicef for these infections, and neither of them kept the infection away. After she got the tubes, there was a bunch of gross drainage that was supposed to go away after 36 hours. We called the ENT on Friday when they were still gross, and we were told that it was ok to still be draining. Sunday was supposed to be the last day on the ear drops, and there was still a TON of gross drainage. So much in fact that we had to use the nose bulb to suction her ear before we put the drops in. Yum. Annabella would stick her fingers in her ears and it would make a juicy sound and come out covered in puss/mucous. Double yum.

So we went to the pediatrician, and she said that she thought there was probably so much drainage that we were unable to get the drops to where they needed to be and put us on the Vantin, which she said was an older but good antibiotic. Apparently it's not prescribed that often anymore, as we had to call 30 pharmacies before we found one that was open on Sunday and carried it. Fun times.

As of today, there's still some caked on grossness on her ears, but no wet puss/mucous. So we might be over the hump. I can't tell you how happy this makes me.

The great Facebook experiment.

So I'm trying my hand at Facebook, and I honestly don't think I care for it. Sure, I found a few friends from my past. And yes, it was kind of neat to find out what's happened with them.

But it feels kind of icky. I feel like Facebook is an internet stalker's dream come true. And I felt like a stalker friending some of these people. And I feel like a stalker leaving messages on their walls or IMing them. Rationally I know that if any of these people left me messages I'd be super pumped, but doing it the other way feels wrong.

So we'll see.

Plus, I accidentally friended someone from high school who I thought was somebody else. The guy I actually friended was a guy who made me super unconfortable in high school. I have some memory of him totally invading my personal space in a way that was uninvited and uncomfortable. So I unfriended him. Which made me feel like a tool.

Clearly I have a few things to learn if I'm to continue my journey into the land of Facebook.

They promised a long nap.

Apparently they don't know my child.

After Annabella woke up from the anesthesia she was quite unhappy, and she let us all know it. The nurses told us that she would be groggy and sleepy for awhile, but that she'd take a long nap and wake up and be better. And by this evening it would be like nothing had happened.

Annabella took a whopping 45 minute nap, and I'm being generous. She woke up, still a little groggy, but within a couple more minutes she was fine, crawling around and playing like normal. She had her surgery at 7:30 this morning, and the only lasting telltales 4.5 hours later are her blood-tinged ears, her slightly enhanced clumsiness (apparently she'll be a little dizzy for a bit), and she keeps grabbing at her ears. So all in all, she's doing fabulous.

I wish I could say that it was time to get the tubes, but I think we missed the time to get tubes a couple months ago and waited longer than we should. It's all a balancing act, and we were hoping she'd grow out of the need for them. But after ending up getting them, I wish we'd have spared her the months of continued ear infections. Oh well. Hindsight and all.

I can say that I feel like we made the right decision in finally getting them though. With the latest ear infection, she went through a 10-day course of Augmentin and then another 10 days of Omnicef. She's been off the antibiotics since Sunday...and the ear infection was already back. The doc said that when he opened her eardrums puss came out on both sides. Yum. Omnicef and Augmentin are the 2 stronger antibiotics they prescribe for ear infections, and neither of them had worked...so the only other option besides getting tubes was getting antibiotic shots...and besides being painful, I really don't like the idea of already being forced to go with the super heavy-duty antibiotics for my not-even-one-year-old. We didn't know ahead of time that her infection would be back of course, but it certainly helps me feel like tubes were ultimately the right decision.

Now I just hope that they do the job and she doesn't get so many infections. Or at least if she continues to get the infections that she won't be in so much pain from them.

Tubes

With this latest ear infection, Jason and I decided to take Annabella to the ENT (ear, nose, and throat doc). Our pediatrician told us that he thought it was time, especially since the summer months hadn't brought about the break we were hoping for. And with cold season rapidly approaching, we needed to do something.

The ENT we met with was very patient and answered all of our questions. At the end of the appointment, he asked if Annabella had had a hearing test since that first one they do at the hospital. We said she hadn't. As we were waiting for the hearing test, Jas and I basically decided to go forward with getting Annabella the tubes. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Then we had the hearing test...and if we weren't 100% convinced before, the hearing test would have certainly put us over the edge. At first they put these tube thingies in Annabella's ears, and they somehow measure the reverberations off of her eardrums. The measurement is supposed to look like a big peak. Annabella's looked like little hills, which indicates fluid behind both ear drums. This wasn't surprising.

Then we're taken into this little room. I hold Annabella on my lap, and Jason sits in front of us. His job is to get her to look forward, but not to overly distract her. Then noises come out of a speaker up and over Annabella's right shoulder. If she looks at the speaker, a box with toys lights up and the toys move around and clap and such. Once it stops, Jason gets her to look forward.

Easy enough, no? Well, Annabella responded to the very loud noises. And it could be that she was too distracted by how awesome Daddy is or that she didn't much care for the magic toys in the box, but she didn't look for the medium sound noises at all. Jas and I both had a hard time not looking over at the box ourselves.

So apparently Annabella is deaf. Ok, not really. But the testing indicates a possible 20-30% hearing loss, most likely because the fluid on her ears are blocking the sounds.

Jas and I got back to the office to wait for the ENT, and we bust out laughing. Because sometimes you have to laugh so that you don't cry.

So Annabella's getting tubes on Wednesday. It's supposed to be an incredibly simple procedure. She wears a gas mask to sedate her, they make little slits in her eardrums, and insert the tubes. As she grows, her eardrums will grow more skin and eventually push the tubes out. Until then, there is another avenue for fluid to drain, and if she gets another ear infection, we can give her antibiotic ear drops rather than oral antibiotics. Simple enough, but we're still scared silly.

On the upside, until Wednesday you can say just about anything you want in our house without worrying about little ears as long as you speak quietly. Stub your tie? Just be sure to whisper the bad words.