Trouble x's 4

(FYI-I started writing this on Friday afternoon and then forgot to finish and publish until tonight. Thank you blogger for saving drafts of what I write...without auto-save I don't think I could keep this blog going!!!)

For the past week now, my sweet boy who sleeps 14 hours a day, has continuously woken up several times a night screaming and has had a terrible time napping. Mommy and daddy have been so spoiled by his wonderful sleeping habits that this week hit us particulary hard and has made for two ornery parents to say the least!

Of course we checked for all the obvious things like a fever, tooth coming through, problems breathing due to stuffy nose...but we couldn't figure out what was going on. Something HAD to be bothering him to interfere with his sleep THIS much.

After putting him down for his nap on Friday morning, he woke up just 30 minutes later and wouldn't even take his beloved pacifier to help him go back to sleep. He was screaming like it hurt him just to suck. I just KNEW we were dealing with our first ear infection and immediately placed a call to the pediatrician's office for a check-up to confirm.

One hour later we were in the waiting room and Austin was in toddler heaven. He is a very curious and independent almost-15-month-old and while we were there, checked out every nook and cranny of that small waiting room. I tried to keep him on the "sick" side, just in case, but that was a pretty much impossible task. There were more people on the "well" side and he had to check out every... single... one. He approached every child he could find...he's fascinated with children...and even more so with what they tend to be holding or are wearing on their feet. He wanted to see every other child's toy....he wanted to steal their lollipops....he wanted to touch them....he wanted to yank on their shoes and play hide and go seek with them....anything to get their attention.

I chased after him and pulled him to the other side about a dozen times. I tried to get him to play with his toys quietly or sit in my lap and read a book. I pulled out his favorite snack to distract him. I held him up to the window and we looked at every passing car and pointed to the trees and bushes outside...

All of a sudden I realized I was exhausted...and I looked at my phone and realized that I had been chasing and distracting my little munchkin in that waiting room for 45 MINUTES!!!

I walked up to the counter with wild man in tow and the girl knew something was wrong immediately. She looked at her computer and saw that it said we had already CHECKED OUT. Ehhhhh...

A nurse finally came and got us and took us to a room. Whew! A small space with no other people for Austin to annoy play with...maybe he would sit quietly on the table now and read a book or watch the TV.

But no...

He ripped every piece of paper covering that padded table to absolute shreds. And I let him. Because that's what a mommy does when she's been waiting in the doctor's office for an hour with a toddler...

10 minutes later a nurse peeked in and said she'd be right back but things had just gotten busy. I told her I was running out of distractions after waiting so long just to have someone check my baby's ears and so she sent in another nurse with a bucket of toys. Austin was amused and I was agitated...

Finally, a doctor came in because the nurse who our appointment was with was apprarently busier than he was...go figure! He agreed that it was probably an ear infection after hearing the symptoms I described and proceeded to take a look in Austin's ears.

They were fine. Of course. Not that I wanted my baby to have an ear infection, but after all we'd gone through I felt like it shouldn't have all been for nothing...know what I mean? Not to mention, I still had a cranky, tired, non-sleeping baby on my hands.

So the doctor kept looking and a check in the back of Austin's mouth quickly revealed the problem. Not one, but FOUR of his molars are coming in at the exact same time. Poor baby!!!

Considering he only has 6 teeth, I thought molars weren't coming in until much later, but these 4 apparently decided to jump the gun.

So far the best treatment has been Motrin before bed, Tylenol before naps and my new tooth brush I just brought home from the dentist. It's the only thing that will get back there far enough to soothe those sore gums and Austin carries it around all day long.

The past three days have been significantly better and Austin seems to be making up on all that lost sleep by taking 3 hour naps every day. Thus, I have caught up on mine as well!! :)

All is MUCH happier in the Harris household!