8:52PM – I just checked on Samantha and that little turkey is still awake. I go back to our bedroom where Brian and I are talking about how to handle Ellie during the night. She’s still not sleeping great. We have been taking turns at each outburst, but after 3 or 4 of those during the night, it’s hard to remember whose turn it is. I was proposing for each of us to take a night. For example, one night, I am responsible for all outbursts so Brian can sleep. The next night, it’s his turn so I can sleep. We didn’t really come to a resolution. I lay down on the bed, which means: game over, I fall asleep.

11:01PM – Brian wakes me up to feed Ellie.

11:38PM – Go back to bed.

1:15AM – I hear Samantha crying. She woke up crying last night too. That never happens. Last night, she must have had a bad dream about a boat. Random. I get up and walk into her room. She tells me, amid the crying, that she needs a napkin to wipe her ear. Um. What? I get a Kleenex and ask her which ear. Sure enough, there’s a nasty goop all over her left ear, face, hair and pillow. Great. An ear infection. (Here’s the original discovery that goop could come out of her ear. Beware, it’s gross.) She had a cold a few weeks ago. She got over it in about a week, so I thought we were in the clear. Oh well. I make a note to call the doctor. I ask her if her ear hurts and she says yes. I ask her if she wants some medicine and she says yes. I give her some Motrin. I tell her we’ll call the doctor in the morning.

1:30AM – Go back to bed.

3:30AM – There’s a raucous on my nightstand. What is it? Is Samantha standing by my bed messing with my nightstand? I’m confused. Molly. Molly is trying to eat my lavender lotion. “Stop. Molly. Stop.” I say as I’m hitting her rear end. She stops only momentarily. I grab her by the collar and pull her off my nightstand. Fall back to sleep.

4:08AM – What. In. The. Name. Of all that is holy. “Molly. Stop.” She’s trying to eat my bottle of lotion again. I grab her and throw her out of the room and close the door. Go back to bed.

4:33AM – “Mreow.” Oh for crying out loud. “Mreow.” Maddie. “Mreow.” She’s standing on the floor just beneath my nightstand. “Mreow.” She is staring up at me. “Mreow.” She wants to be near her beloved Molly. “Mreow.” She is persistent. “Mreow.” I get up, open the bedroom door and wait for her to bolt out. Mostly close the door. Go back to bed.

4:35AM – The air conditioner kicks on. The bedroom door slams closed.

5:13AM – Ellie wakes up. Normally, I would be happy if she slept till after 5. Brian gets up. I don’t hear her in the monitor any more.

5:15AM – Brian yells at me from the front of the house. “Jane! I need some help!” Doesn’t he know that he’s going to wake up Samantha if he yells like that? I get out of bed. I nearly walk into Sam in the hallway. She is standing with nothing on but a shirt. Ellie starts to cry. Brian is stripping Samantha’s bed. He says “Pick one.” I go into Ellie’s room and give her a paci. She falls right back to sleep. On a normal night, that never happens. I come back out and help Sam get to the potty. We sit for a while in the bathroom. She says she needs to go, but nothing happens. After Brian finishes with her bed, I put another diaper and new PJs on her. I get her back in bed and tell her to go back to sleep.

5:30AM – Go back to my bedroom. I ask Brian what happened. Apparently, after quieting Ellie, he heard some strange noises in Sam’s room. He went in and she was sitting up in bed. He told her to lay down. She said she couldn’t because her popsicles were wet (her PJs have popsicles on them). Sure enough, she and all her bedding were wet.

6AM – Ellie wakes up. Brian gives her a paci and comes back to bed. She continues to squawk. It’s not really a cry, but it usually means she’s tired or cold.

6:30AM – Alarm goes off. Like I need it. I’ve been awake since 3:30.

The end.

Today, the doctor determined that she has lost the tube in her right ear, so we’ll have to be careful about that one.

Samantha and Brian got sick a couple of weeks ago with a bad cold. It was a doozie. However, after suffering through that week, they both got better. We had a solid week of health around here only for Janie to get it next. Took long enough. Anyway.

Over the weekend, Brian kept telling me that Samantha’s neck smelled bad. Like, really stunk. I tried to smell her neck but either I was smelling in the wrong place, or I just couldn’t smell at all (thanks to the cold). Last night, as we were getting ready for her bath, I noticed that her hair was stuck to her ear with this nasty goupy stuff. It was quite gross. And quite smelly.

Turns out, she’s got an ear infection. Thanks to the tubes, the goup is draining out of her ear. We’ve got some antibiotic ear drops to start using. (And I’m sure you can imagine the fun we’re going to have to pin down a 2 year old to put drops down her ear.) If that doesn’t clear it up, we’ll have to switch to an oral antibiotic.

I guess I’ll start with our trip to the beach. We had a great time! Samantha slept for a whopping 45 minutes in the car ride there and back. I sat in the back with her both ways so I could occupy her a little bit. And of course, I wanted to show her what she should be doing in a car, so I “pretended” to sleep a lot. Thanks for driving, Brian! Samantha LOVED the water. She plays in a baby pool a lot (8″ deep) at home so she was used to laying in the shallow water on her tummy and floating. Thanks for all the help from MamaLinda and Aunt Lettie for watching her when my back was turned.

Her ears seems to be doing fine. She wore ear plugs while we were at the beach. She wasn’t bothered by them too much, but that could have been because there was so much else to see and do. She is teething again though. One tooth has broken through on the bottom (one of the pointy ones). She’s a bit lopsided because she has 2 more teeth on the left side than she does the right. I’m guessing they’ll come in at their own pace. Anyway, she’s been drooling, congested, and coughing a lot lately. Maybe the tubes will keep her well.

Here are some random facts about her. She is a great singer, having finished the whole alphabet song by herself yesterday. Wow! She is so incredibly independent these days too. She is learning that when we give her choices, she can say yes (and it actually sounds like yes) and shakes her head for no. She can almost put her Crocs on by herself. She opened the pantry door today (although I’m not sure if it was already cracked, but she sure was working that handle). She loves being chased by the corn popper. She can say I love you and has given several sweet closed mouth cheek kisses recently.

And lastly, Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Samantha has been doing well after her tube surgery. We had the Post-Op yesterday and the doctor said everything looked good. We’ll go back in on Monday to get fitted for special plugs. Her ears can get wet in treated water (bath, pool, etc), but not untreated water (river, ocean, lake, etc). Since we’re headed to the beach next week, we need to get some ear plugs for her ears in case she decides that she likes playing in the ocean.

We’ve enjoyed visiting with all our family over the past several weeks. I am glad, however, to stay at home this weekend. It’s much needed. Props goes out to my friend Kris who bailed me out today. Thanks Kris!

We did get some bad news on Friday though. Our day sitter, Paula, turned in her notice. We’re sad. She is taking over her parents real estate business. I know how much she loves working with kids, so I hope it works out for her. Paula, if you’re out there, we will miss you dearly.

For extra credit, here’s a 20 second video of a myringotomy being performed.

We have enjoyed a few weekends at home after a busy April. Catching up on little things makes me feel better. I’ve been decorating a little bit. I feel like I’m horrible at decorating a house, so I’ve been trying to put my style into the house just a bit. Not a moment too soon, since we’ve been here for nearly 6 years…

Samantha had her 18 months checkup last week. She’s growing well and very average. Everything was right on, except for her speech. She’s not saying as many words as is normal at this age. I’m not worried about it because the girl “talks” constantly and I know words will come in due time. The doctor is not worried about it because her “receptive” language is good. She really does understand exactly what we say. She knows most of her body parts and all sorts of other everyday words. However, her lack of words may be due to the fact that she has yet another ear infection. The doctor said it’s time to go to an ENT and get tubes. Having constant ear infections can make sounds muffled, so she may not be hearing properly, therefore her speech will be affected. I’m not totally convinced that it’s the right course of action, but we at least need to give it a try (going to the ENT that is). They might have other options for us.

In other news, I am excited to be taking a trip to visit Lauren and Daniel in DC soon. Brian is, as usual, anxious of flying so I’ll have my work cut out for me to get him on the plane. I’m a little nervous about taking Samantha with us, but I think she’ll be ok. That is, if she starts feeling better.

Last Friday or Saturday, she started to get a runny nose and bad cough. We had a full weekend of errands, birthday parties and baptisms, so her nap schedule wasn’t what it should have been. I was worn out by Sunday night, so I know she was too. We had our new TV console furniture delivered yesterday, so the living room was in disarray when she got home from a full day at Paula’s house. (However, the shelves were not delivered, so we still can’t put the whole thing together.) She was in such a bad mood. Paula said she was really good all day and even acted like her appetite was coming back a little bit. Not the case last night. She was not satisfied with anyone or anything last night. I thought that because the house was a little out of the ordinary, that she just didn’t want to handle it. She went to bed a little early and woke up a little throughout the night just like she had been all week. This morning, Paula called and said she was running a fever so I took her to the doctor at lunch. She has a double ear infection that the doctor said looked pretty painful. That explains the acting up of the past 24 hours. I’ve got some numbing ear drops and a round of antibiotic, so hopefully she’ll start feeling better. Back in December, the doctor said that if she had one more ear infection, we’d have to go to the ENT to talk about tubes. Because she’s been sick since then and it didn’t develop into an ear infection, and because it’s been almost 4 months since the last one, the doctor said he would wait on the ENT visit. Hopefully, she’ll grow out of it soon.

In other TV news, our TV in the bedroom has a built-in DVD player. We’ve had it for a while and we really like it, but the DVD player is really sketchy. It’s not reliable and I may have been known to try to stuff 2 DVDs in at once. Just maybe. Since Sam’s still carries it, I thought we could try to take it back and get another one. So we did. Saturday afternoon, we start unpacking the new one and discover that it has a different bracket attachment on the back. It’s the same TV, but apparently a newer model. Brian finally ordered a conversion bracket for it, so maybe our bedroom will get back to normal (ladders and boxes out of the way) soon.

Well, I think that’s it. OH. I need to finish the shoe story. Socks with sandals didn’t work on Saturday, but I had some luck on Sunday night. She wore them around the house for about 2 hours! I’d say that it was success. However, Paula bought her some Crocs at the beach last weekend. Samantha has no problem with those. Crocs cover most of the foot, so maybe she thinks they are like regular shoes. I guess she can wear sandals this summer after all!

Ok, now I think I’m done.

The right ear was infected last time, and it still is. The left ear now has an infection too. I don’t think the infection ever went away, so this round of antibiotics was not effective (keep in mind it was not penicillin-based). However, this counts as ear infection #4 – and 3 in 6 weeks. The doctor prescribed one more antibiotic. If she doesn’t get better this time, we’ll have to go see an ENT and start having the tube discussion. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

In other news, she began walking in earnest tonight. I know we’ve said that for weeks now, but this time, it’s for real. At least it seems so. She had been taking those 5-6 steps in between us for weeks. Tonight, she would venture off course and even began walking laps in her bedroom. It was very cool. She gets very frustrated when she falls and has to get back up on her own, but I think she’ll have that mastered soon enough. Big day.