Rookie Mom

Do you ever feel like a bad mother?

I feel like a colossal jerk today.

M and I took Will in for his six month well baby check last night. He was his usual happy little self, flirting with a lady in the waiting room, laughing at the fish in the big tank, and charming the doctor with his winsome smile. She started to examine him and. . .

No, wait. I must first back up to last week, when Will started poking and tugging at his ear. He didn't seem overly bothered, more like he was just exploring it. Oh, and he had one really terrible night of sleep, when I was convinced that something was wrong. Other than that, there was no fever, no redness to the ear, no incessant crying. I did call the doctor's office the day that he was messing with his ear and they attributed it to teething.

Okay, back to the story.

So Dr. S asked how things were going, was impressed by his social skills, continued "stellar" growth chart (the little Monkey weighed in at 18 lbs, 6 oz), and asked him to call her four month old son to give him the news that sleeping through the night is a good thing (I love it when a pediatrician admits that her baby isn't SSTN at four months!). We mentioned the ear tugging and pulling and as she looked in his left ear, she started explaining how teething can cause ear pain, and blah, blah, blah. . . ear looks great. . . then she looked in the right and. . .

Major. Ear. Infection. Including a middle and inner ear infection and a possibly already-ruptured eardrum. His little ear had so much fluid and debris she had to clear it out before she could see the drum itself and it was still hard to see because of all the junk in there. She seemed really surprised that he was so happy and peaceful with such a raging infection.

As a result, Will is taking his first antibiotics (yeah, it's not good when they prescribe antibiotics for an ear infection) both orally and in the ear. He gets a little extra Ty.lenol for the pain and we have to go back in two weeks.

So much for Mother's Intuition, although even Dr. S said that based on his disposition earlier in the exam, she would not have thought she'd find that ear in such awful shape. It doesn't make much difference, though, I still feel bad that he's been in pain this whole time.

In addition to the whole ear drama (including having to hold him down while they cleaned out all of the wax), he had his normal 6 month vaccines plus a flu shot. Lucky, lucky little guy! He was having a good time at the doctor until all that started. Once we were done with all of the torture, I went to lay him back down on the table (where all of the "fun" had happened) and he was not pleased. He started crying again and I had to quickly finish dressing him before I gave him what he really wanted . . . boob. Luckily, that still solves everything.

We got him home after a quick stop at the pharmacy and I expected a real bedtime struggle. Nope. He barely stayed awake as I gave him his first dose of the pink stuff, some Ty.lenol, and put his sleep sack on him. He went into bed without a peep and stayed there until this morning.

He seems fine this morning, no fever, no fussiness. He hasn't had breakfast yet, and I had noticed he wasn't eating as much the past couple of days, so that will be the final test to see how he is doing after all that.

But I still feel like a moron.