Boys and Paci's and Ears, Oh My!

Ethan: This morning was Ethan's appointment with the Ear Nose and Throat doctor.  Ethan just finished his 3rd antibiotic on Saturday and he's still tugging on that ear!  So the doc checked him after putting him under this microscope thing and cleaning out some wax.... he said that his ears are no longer infected (yay!!!) but still significant amount of fluid behind both ears.  He said that the thing about that is they do not want a child to have fluid behind his ears longer than 3 mos.  He's going on about 6-8 wks now so we scheduled an appointment to re-look at the end of April and if there is still fluid there, we are probably going to put tubes in.  OR if he gets another infection between now and then, we'll probably do tubes.  He said right now, his professional opinion is that it's a little premature.  I'm ok with either, honestly - I just want my boy to feel better and have no permanent damage to his ears from all this.  On another note - his appetite seems to be back, if not just temporarily, so that's good!  He's still doing the "crawl scoot" otherwise known as "the worm" ALL OVER THE PLACE!! He is still sleeping great and just as happy as can be.... He hasn't had anymore breakouts so that's good.  As far as the cats go, I talked to my friend who is a pediatrician, and he said that until Ethan is at least 2 years old, he won't even have the antibodies he needs to get an accurate allergy testing.  He said that it's possible if we would get a positive that would probably be a positive, but if we got a negative, that would definitely not mean negative necessarily and we'd just have to re-test.  So he suggested using the Zyrtec a few more months - and then taking Ethan over to my mom's - who doesn't have cats - and let him crawl around on his belly shirtless and see if that causes the same reaction as it does here at our house....  So we'll try that and wait it out.  In the meantime, we are keeping the cats out of Ethan's room permanently and just try to keep some space between him and the cats... keep vacuuming, etc.  For now.

Jackson:  The sweet precious toddler-love of my life Jackson.  He is just amazing.  He truly truly is.  I am SO proud to brag that I honestly think he may be the most polite little nearly 3yr old boy that I've ever known.  He has recently started, on his own, saying Yes ma'm and No sir, etc.  He always says Thank You and Please and Bless You when you sneeze.... He is just beyond precious.  I love how much he's teaching me!  Sometimes he gets a little carried away w/ the "EXCUSE ME!" when he wants your attention.... Now, don't get me wrong.  We still throw fits and does things we tell him not to do - just like any kid his age - he's testing the waters.  He responds very well to Time Out and finally will walk to Time Out on his own when I tell him he's in "TimeOut!."  He plays GREAT w/ his brother and we are learning about sharing w/ him.  That's hard - especially with his trains, but I've found that if I say "Jackson, if you don't want Ethan to hold Thomas, how about Henry?" He's willing to do that...so that's a start.  The trains are serious business.   He is still so wrapped up in trains and everything about them.  He dreams about them!  He'll make up these amazing stories about the trains and how they talk to each other and he even uses different voices when he is "pretending" to be one or the other.  Love!  He and I started putting puzzles together and I've found he's so good at this too!  He can easily put together on his own a 24 pc puzzle after I've showed him how it goes a few times.... which may be normal, but I'm impressed.  He's doing a great job w/ going to the potty w/o accidents.  We had a few weeks where for some reason, he was peeing in the bed and his teacher gave me some helpful advice and we are now solely using positive reinforcement w/ him and that TOTALLY works.  He will wake up in the morning and go "mommy! mommy!!!  my bed clean and dry!!!!" to which Ryan and I in unison will call out "YAY JACKSON!!!!" and we do this almost every morning...  Since he doesnt have the paci to soothe him back to sleep anymore, he's been having trouble self soothing in the middle of the night.  Well, since we gave up the paci, he's been waking up a lot!  But the last 2 nights, he woke up several times and around the 2nd or 3rd time of crying out and told us he needed to go pee... so he did both nights - which is GREAT!  He has been replacing the paci w/ a train to hold each night.  We make a big deal of it saying "Jackson, you get to pick which train gets to sleep w/ you in your big boy bed tonight." And he'll take like 5 minutes to decide!  So hopefully, he'll stop waking up so much in the middle of the night.  I must admit that this paci thing has been the hardest adjustment on the whole family.... Jackson has always been such a great sleeper and listening to him cry at night for his paci was really hard... but every single day it gets better and easier and soon, he won't be waking up anymore.  Today, he took a nap at school - which is HUGE since he was having a rough time w/ naps at school before we got rid of the paci, so success everywhere!  :)

I told a friend at lunch today that I feel like I'm totally complete when I am with my boys.  I cannot imagine what my life would have ever been if I hadn't had them. They fill me up in the most incredible ways.  I absolutely love these 2 boys - I seriously think my heart might explode sometimes.  Thank goodness it hasn't!!!