Maddi’s had a busy month. She’s started two classes, figured out how to scale any item of furniture (and nonfurniture) in the house, and had her very first ear infection. We’ll start with the ear infection.
Since she is making an early entree into what is (mistakenly) called the Terrible Twos, we missed a few of the symptoms of her infection — crankiness, whininess, poor appetite and sleeping problems. Of course, these have all been symptoms of her Terrible Twos as well, and she didn’t display any “classic” symptoms like ear-pulling or screaming, so there wasn’t much difference between “happy” Maddi and ear-infection Maddi. That is, until our normally on-schedule little girl stayed up all night, wailing every time we put her back in the crib.
We took her to the doctor the next day and sure enough, at the ripe old age of 17 months, Maddi had finally gotten the ear infection we’d obsessively checked for her entire life and yet somehow missed when it actually happened. Not only did she have an infection, Maddi had a fairly severe double ear infection.
Apparently there has been a virus going around town and a lot of kids have been going into the clinic with ear infections lately, so we kept Maddi home from daycare and swimming for the weekend and made sure she got every drop of her prescribed antibiotics (which of course aren’t usually recommended for mild ear infections, but our poor little girl’s ears were in pretty serious shape by the time we took her in). Sure enough, four days later, her eardrums were healthy and pink again and Maddi was back to her slightly less-crabby self.
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In other news, Maddi is back in swimming class, and enjoying it immensely. She was a little wary at first, having entered her clingy stage, but after a few classes she has become the most enthusiastic participant in the opening round of “Wheels on the Bus” and the part where all the babies make big splashes. Likewise, toddler time at the library was a scary experience last week (until a rousing rendition of “Pop Goes the Weasel” 15 minutes in got her interested) and yet this week, our wee exhibitionist stood in the middle of the story circle and danced maniacally to “I’m a Little Teapot” (let’s remember that the other babies were all sitting in their mommies’ laps).
And now, the moment you have all been waiting for: