Tears, Ears & Cheers

Its been a bit of a long week. Actually, it feels like its been a long month. Despite February being my (and Mark's) birthday month, I'm always relieved when its over. Its such a blah time of year and I find myself longing for the first signs of spring.

I think the boys have been feeling the blahs too, despite the many new friends we've made recently, the cool drop in centres we've been going to, and the visit from Gran and Grandpa last weekend. All of those things have helped to alleviate some of the grumpiness that has hung over our house like a dark cloud for the past few weeks, but we have definitely had some rough days and nights. Mark and I have noticed that the boys haven't been their usual selves for a while, and I've been putting it down to the possibility of teething molars or a nasty cold. I even started to tell myself that maybe this was just the way two year olds are. But the tears and clinginess, the total meltdowns and frustrations seemed to be more than that.

Things finally came to a head last Friday when neither of the boys would lie down for their afternoon nap. They were jumping around and talking to each other when all of a sudden, William started to sob and tell me his "eyah heut! eyah heut, mummy!" I gave him some tempra, but it wasn't helping fast enough. I decided this was more than just teething and I quickly looked up ear infections in one of my parenting books, whilst my mum sent me some info online. I realised that if I didn't call my doctor right away to get an appointment and just waited to see if things got better, I would no doubt end up having to take one or both boys to a walk-in clinic over the weekend, which would not be fun (just ask Amber who did have to go with Abigail on Saturday!). Thankfully, the wonderful Dr F called me back right away and told me to come in at 4pm. I love that woman.

And I'm so glad I listened to my gut and called her rather than taking a wait-and-see approach because poor Willibear does indeed have an ear infection and Owen is either on the tail end of one or about to get one. So armed with amoxycillin and more tempra, plus some stickers from Dr F for being such brave boys, we headed into the weekend with a better understanding of why our children have been off for the last little while.

I now understand why William has been constantly crying "huggamummy, huggamummy" and clinging to my jeans and why Owen has been demanding "up! up! up! up! uuuuuuuuuup!" throughout the day. And I know understand why its been such hard work to keep the boys happy for more than an hour at a time. Fingers crossed, my little smiley guys will be back with us in no time.

On a happier note, we had some celebrating in the house this evening, when William peed in the potty for the first time ever! Hurray! I was actually on the phone to Amber at the time, sitting on the edge of the tub in front of Will. Its funny because he's hardly asked to go on the potty at all, whereas Owen asks to sit on it at least once a day without any, uh, results, so to speak. But for some reason William decided he wanted to sit on it this evening and then all of a sudden I heard a little tinkle. I don't know who was more suprised, me, him or Amber, since I started yelling down the phone that he'd peed in the potty. The cutest thing was that William wanted to hold the phone and tell his Auntie Amber what had happend and he said very excitedly, "Ah-buh! I poop potty!!!" Not quite, honey, but just as exciting.

So watch this space, because I think we've finally started our long and bumpy journey to being potty trained! Oh, and one more thing. Both boys have figured out how to get out of their sleep sacks and throw a leg over the side of the crib so I think we don't have any choice but to change their beds now. I think Operation Big Boy Beds is going to have a second attempt this weekend. Wish us luck!