More Fun with Dubious Milestones

[rockinlibrarian]

Sammy's asleep so I can type with two hands, which is much more productive for an entry. I suppose it's equally productive for, you know, doing writing I can get paid for, but three of you have already yelled at me to write about yesterday, today. Or at least you responded to that entry.

Except I didn't actually mean to "write about YESTERDAY" (or yesterday's today), just that yesterday would be included in a general catch-up about Sammy, who is making this a week of Sort of Milestones.

Currently he is recovering from his Very First Ear Infection. That was our excitement of yesterday, going to the doctors' and having the doctor try to see in Sammy's ears which didn't work because Sam has apparently inherited his dad's bizarre trait of aquiring large quantities of rock-hard ear wax, so then it was a matter of trying to get the wax OUT in order to SEE into the ear, which let me tell you was NOT Sammy's favorite thing to happen this week. Actually it probably was the most traumatic experience of his life so far, considering it made him so angry he literally was turning purple. "Bad news is," said the doctor after looking in the first ear, "that's definitely infected. Good news is THIS ear is obviously infected, so we don't have to try to clean out the other one since the treatment's the same either way!"

So, Leah and Rita my pharmacy/biology experts, and especially Rita since you've probably tried to medicate a non-solid-eating-yet infant before, is it really bad when half of each dose of antibiotics gets dribbled-if-not-spit back out, or is a little bit of leeway accounted for in the dosing of infant medication so that my son isn't single-handedly breeding the resistant superbug that will wipe out humanity?

In further painful milestone news, on Friday he gave himself his Very First Paper Cut. But HOW he did so makes for a much cooler dubious milestone: he's started reading books! Okay, he's really become fascinated with print, which is cool, but anyway we were sitting on the floor listening to this CD from my aunt, Boynton and Ford, which my mom couldn't believe I've never heard of before but they write really awesome kids CDs (you know, kids CDs that adults actually like)-- anyway, the CD rocked, incidently, but it comes with a book with the words and notation in it, a picture book, and I had it opened up on the floor beside me, and Sammy was sprawled over my knees on his tummy. I noticed he was looking at the book. Then I stopped looking, I don't know what I was doing, dozing off or looking the other way or something, when I heard him yell, so I looked back, and Sammy was looking at the NEXT PAGE of the book! And then he turned ANOTHER page! He pawed the page over with his hand, not like the fine motor coordination an older person would use to turn pages, but he figured out that pages get turned (and in the right order too, though this is probably more to do with him being right-handed), and that's just dang cool. It was another minute though before I spotted a bit of blood on his knuckle and realized why he'd yelled... his first page-turning experience marred by a paper cut!

He's started creeping in earnest, belly-crawling. He doesn't hate Tummy Time QUITE as much as he used to, expressing his discomfort, annoyance, and frustration in a series of angry yelps as opposed to immediate full-blown crying. Mostly I just let him yelp until he sounds REALLY upset, and he's made some really decent progress forward and is holding himself up on his arms higher and higher, yelping all the way.

When he's on his back his latest game is swinging his legs up as high as they can go. This will probably result soon in either his catching his feet in his hands, which will be an exciting discovery for sure, or his flipping back to front, which I think is what he's actually trying for. So far he gets over onto his side, but not past, though he's taken to lying on his side quite happily lately, although now I'm not sure if this isn't because it's more comfortable on his ears that way.

On the whole I'm lucky to have such a generally good-tempered and fun kid... especially now that I know his fussiness of the past few days is because his EARS HURT, it puts in sharp relief all his happy fun times... and the fact that he still has happy fun times even when his ears have been hurting!

PS-- I also did something productive this morning. I harvested the second-year parsley that grew wild in what-I-had-once-hoped-to-be-a-proper-herb-garden-until-I-got-pregnant-last-summer and am going to dry it to refill my empty dried-parsley-flakes-cannister, so I can say, haha, I could have BOUGHT more parsley flakes but why buy when you can DO IT YOURSELF HAHA! Anyhoo that's pretty cool.

Comments

[lady1297.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't worry about SOME dribbling of antibiotics, but if less than half gets out, then I'd call the pharmacy. Best technique is to push the liquid out into the side of his cheek between his cheek and gums near where his molars would be. Pull back the side of his mouth to squeeze the dropper into that area, then squirt. That forces him to swallow it without thrusting it out. :) There's a link on line, Dr. Jay Gordon I think who tells you better how to do it (in case my directions suck!).

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

It's frustrating that the past two times he's taken Tylenol he's got it all down, but he spits out the stuff that will actually MAKE him better! Of course the Tylenol dose is a whole lot smaller, and so's the dropper itself-- that might make a difference.

[lady1297.livejournal.com]

Which antibiotic is he on? You can ask the pharmacist to flavor it for you, if he likes Berry Tylenol (or whatever flavor he likes), ask them to flavor the antibiotic in something similar. It MAY cost a dollar or something depending on your pharmacy, but it's worth it as some of the antibiotics taste NASTY! :) Amoxicillian is usually pretty good tasting for most kids, though...and I'd assume that's what the ped put him on as it is typically the first antibiotic given for ear infections.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Yep, he's on "the pink stuff" amoxicillin, which I personally thought was actually pretty yummy as a child, but that's just me! He's got the grape Tylenol, as the two Tylenol options were grape and cherry and I love fake grape flavor but hate fake cherry, so I thought there was a chance Sammy might feel the same way. Of course like I said I liked the taste of pink liquid amoxicillin, too! It still smells kind of good too (definitely do not like the taste of amoxicillin in any other form though). Anyway, we'll see what happens next time he takes it, if I can get it far enough back or get it in there slowly enough that he swallows it before he can stick his tongue out again...