A Rough Night

Cooper, for the most part, is a dream baby. He is so happy, and social, and cute, and snuggly; he charms everyone he meets.

Usually.

Last night, he made some major withdrawals from the cute bank. He was fussy and inconsolable from some time after midnight all the way through until this morning. When he did sleep, it was fitful and interrupted. Neither Chris nor I managed to sleep ourselves much after 1 a.m. Jackson, on the other hand, was not affected by all the ruckus and managed to sleep in 'til almost 10 o'clock this morning. Ahhhh, the innocence of youth.

As Cooper fussed and squirmed, I offered walking, rocking, medicine, food, drink, diaper change, favorite TV show, and repeat through the night, with minimal to no success. At one point, I thought he might even do well to sleep next to his brother (since he wouldn't relax in our bed), so I put Jackson in the crib with him. I think he got at least an hour of rest that way.

At 5 a.m., I was thisclose to taking to the ER, but I figured he was certainly awake and alert enough and other than being in pain he was not in distress. So I tried to wait it out with him until the pediatrician's office opened. I'm pretty proud of myself because although I was frustrated with the situation but stayed on task enough to not be upset with Cooper. In the middle of the night, it's pretty easy for me to be cranky and blame the kid that is keeping me awake. But I just knew he was miserable, and I was more than a little worried that something serious was wrong.

Chris thought it was an ear infection, I thought it was his stomach. I imagined all sorts of terrible things were going on, namely intussusception. I get a little melodramatic when it comes to my kids, I guess. But to my defense, an ear infection has never elicited such a strong response from him.

Until now.

Chris was right, and he wanted me to be sure I mentioned that in this post. The diagnosis? Double ear infections. Apparently, Cooper's right eardrum had already ruptured and was mostly healed. That would explain the crusties in his ear and the blood on his sheets from more than a week ago. Oops! I really thought he'd just scratched his ear with his fingernails. And of course, he wasn't fussy because rupture is actually a relief from the pain and pressure.

Lesson learned.

Here's hoping that everyone will rest a little better tonight, after a round or two of antibiotics.

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Some funnies: I've realized that Jackson has a belief that medicine ("meh-sin") has magical healing powers, even after one dose. I had told him that Cooper was sick and that he needed to go to the doctor. Then as we were waiting for his prescriptions (plural because we get to do eardrops--yay.), I explained that we had to get medicine for him. When we got home, I gave CooCoo his first dose, which Jackson witnessed. He asked excitedly, "You give Cooper his meh-sin? He not sick anymore?" So sweet.

Also, I am on antibiotics myself, as of yesterday. From the moment I picked up the prescription, Jackson put himself in charge of medicine administration. I was pretty worn out after we got home and sat down on the couch to rest. Jackson came up to me and rubbed my back while he asked, "You sick? Where's your meh-sin?" I helped him get a pill out of the bottle for me. He grabbed it, and then handed it back to me, saying, "Here you go, Honey." pat. pat. pat. He even supervised me as I took it. Afterwards he said, "You feel better now?" I can't help but smile. My little nurse-in-training.

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