I’m still trying to learn a different way of editing my pictures and getting them posted.   I have tons to share, but I have to at least resize them otherwise Blog.com won’t let me post them.  Stay tunned, hopefully this week I can get a couple up. 

I got off on a tangent yesterday and didn’t get to a post about Littlest at the Baby Factory.  As the special ed teacher said last night, it was good to have a “normal” medical experience.  Lots of kids get tubes in their ears, no big deal.  We just chose to have it done at the children’s hospital because of Littlest’s preemie lung situation.  

I had a feeling it was going to go well when I managed to drive all the way over (18 miles) and only had to stop at one traffic light!   It had to be a sign.  I even arrived 10 minutes early.   I had planned on leaving 45 minutes before the 7 a.m. check in time, but didn’t leave until 6:30.   Since everyone deals with kids there, the focus was on Littlest being comfortable and not making things too scary.  Littlest did amazingly well considering she hadn’t eaten for about 7 hours and I got her up out of a sound sleep.   She whimpered a couple times before surgery, but was smiling and playing with the nurses so they didn’t feel the need to premedicate her before surgery (which apparently they do when the kids are crying and clinging to their parents).  At 8:35, I carried her down the hall to the OR suite and handed her off without a tear (she didn’t cry either).   I walked out to the lobby to call Daddy and update him, sat back down and played with my camera and suddenly the doctor was back.  She said everything went very well and that Littlest had a raging ear infection still and we made a good choice to have tubes put in.  She no sooner left than they brought me my little baby girl back.   She apparently cried some when she woke up and mommy wasn’t holding her.  I held her for a while then fed her some.  Then she was back to her happy, chipper self.   The nurses were amazed.  They said usually kids are cranky and crying.   We were able to leave by 9:30.   Littlest was fairly tired and napped on the way home and for about an hour or so once we got home, but was back to playing after that.  They said she probably would have some drainage from her ears, pus or a bloody discharge  and she did.  It seemed like a lot, but she has little ears so even a drop seems like a lot. 

The next day Littlest was smiling, laughing and went to daycare without a hitch.  In two weeks we go for  recheck and a hearing test to see how things are going.  I think she can hear better already because she whimpered when Daddy had the TV too loud.  I think the super strength eardrops they gave us helped too because she just seems to feel better.   Enough so that she had two pretty good tantrums yesterday - one because I took something away from her and another because  I wouldn’t let her get in the bath right away.  I probably shouldn’t have laughed out loud, but I did.  It’s good to see her be a tiny bit bratty. 

On another note, a long time ago I thought I wanted to be a Child Life Specialist, but at the time there were very few colleges that offered the program nationwide and none even remotely close to where I lived.  In fact, there was only one or two people in my local area who were working in that field.  Monday at the Baby Factory, I was able to watch a Child Life Specialist in action.  I won’t exactly say I missed my calling, but I felt that pull again.   The amount of work to become one is over the top hard and time consuming plus the number of jobs available is minimal, so it wouldn’t exactly be a wise career choice.   It was just good to see.