"God doesn't give children with special needs to strong people; He gives children with special needs to ordinary, weak people and then gives them strength. Raising a child with special needs doesn't take a special family, it makes a special family."--Author Unknown

Friday, February 18, 2011

Double Ear Infections and Matthew's Excellent Day

Poor Noah has been not very happy ever since he got the flu bug a few weeks ago. I took him in two weeks ago for his Synagis (RSV) shot and that's when I found out he had an ear infection. He got started on an antibiotic, but he never got over being fussy and irritable. After two weeks of fussiness and that includes multiple night wakings/feedings, I was a zombie. Monday night he woke up every hour on the hour. You could seriously set your watch by it. I was a total zombie Tuesday morning. About this time I was missing my happy-go-lucky Noah so I decided to take him back to the pediatrician to see what was up. We found out that not only had his ear infection in his left ear not cleared, he had developed a worse ear infection in his right ear. So I was given a different antibiotic and got to make another trip to the pharmacy yet again. However, so far so good. I think he is actually starting to feel better since I was able to put him down yesterday afternoon and he stayed happy. Hopefully his ears can both clear up--poor kiddo. If not, I will be making another trip to the pediatrician's office in two weeks for another Synagis shot so he can get checked out again at that time. I am getting to know my pediatrician a lot better than I ever wanted too--that's for sure!!

Matthew is on a behavior plan at school since that is his biggest struggle in his education right now. Every day he gets a rating on how well he did for that day. His daily behavior can get rated Excellent, Good, Fair and Rough. Lately he has been having far too many fair and rough days. I tried to bribe him to get some better behavior. He got a coupon for a free kids meal at a local restaurant a few months ago and I told him if he could have an excellent day at school I would take him out to redeem his free kids meal coupon. I made that bribe about two months ago and was starting to doubt if we would ever be able to use it. That was until he came home Wednesday afternoon just beaming. He ran all the way off the bus inside the house screaming that he had an excellent day. After we got so excited over his excellent day, he made sure I would take him for his kid's meal for dinner. I guess a promise is a promise so I got to have a mother/son date for dinner. During dinner I was asking him about school. That's when it came out he had had a substitute teacher that day who has never worked in his classroom before. Hmmmm. That's probably why he got an excellent rating because the substitute didn't know how the daily ratings worked. Oh well. We got so excited for him that, hopefully, he will actually want to work for that excellent rating when the regular teacher (who knows how the rating system works) comes back. Good thing I have another free kids meal coupon all ready to use when he, hopefully, has that excellent day.

Daniel has been working on his writing skills at preschool. He loves to draw pictures as well. Yesterday he was working on this little number for a little bit when he came and got Aaron and me. He was so excited to show that he knows how to write his name (with an extra "z" in it). He also spelled out the words Mom and Dad and was able to draw hearts next to them. I love kids at this age!! He used his baby picture magnet to hang it up on the fridge with, but not before he wrote his name to the side of his face on the actual picture. Maybe they can take this writing thing a bit too far--but it is still cute! Sarah has been watching and copying me lately. I was cleaning up yesterday when I put my cleaning rag down. When I went to use it again, I couldn't find it anywhere. I just happen to walk past Sarah's toy kitchen and found that she had draped it over her toy faucet just like I do on the real faucet. There are also a few of Noah's baby spoons in her toy sink that she has used to feed her baby Montee (Monkey). If I ever need a baby spoon for Noah I just have to check her sink because that's where I will find most of them. Sarah loves to get her picture taken. She found these sunglasses and put them on. Then she handed me my cell phone and then said, "Cheese!" and waited until I took her picture. What a ham!!

2 comments:

Jeff n Jill said...

Sydney gets tubes put in on Mar 1st. I am beginning to wonder if she has another ear infection, she is a little crabby, but not too bad - she could also be getting more teeth so who knows. The ENT actually told us that if a child is asymptomatic that they recommend no antibiotics for ear infections. So, I will save my $40 and spend it on tubes instead. He did say that I don't have to worry about the pool & tubes - unless Sydney is planning on diving head first into water and/or diving down underwater for more than 3 feet... (I think we're safe!)

Stacey said...

That tricky kid. LOL. Sounds like something my kids would do. I have a son that keeps bringing home school tickets for things I can't believe he is doing (bad) He used to be good until he started to play with this one boy. I'm not blaming him but it is a question that it started when he moved in. I don't know what to do with him. My patience sure isn't as good as yours! Keep up the good work!