Stuff that I wrote down in December

The medical term of the week was bullous myringitis. On Monday (11/30) a little after lunchtime Heidi was suddenly having a lot of ear pain and she couldn't hear well in that ear. She cried the entire way to pick Kevin up from the bus and for a long time after we got back, so I knew it was time to call the doctor. We got an appointment that evening and that was when we found out what bullous myringitis means. It means that Heidi had an ear infection and had developed a painful blister on her eardrum, which is why her ear was hurting so terribly. The good news is that it's not that big of a deal, even if the blister ruptures (apparently in the olden days they used to treat it by puncturing the blister with a lance), so we got an antibiotic and she's already doing much better. We met the new pediatrician and he was really good. He even had me look in Heidi's ears with the otoscope so I could see the difference between the good ear and the infected one, which I thought was cool because I've never had a doctor do that before.

Here's a Facebook post I wrote around 4:30 a.m. on Friday (12/4): "UGGGHH, Kevin burst into our room at 2:30 am and said in a panicked voice, 'MOM! You forgot to give Heidi her antibiotic!' which was true, but from his tone of voice you would have thought there was a burglar in the house. I was getting some seriously awesome sleep and it startled me so bad I'm still awake two hours later. I want to laugh and cry at the same time." I finally got up and did family history until it was time to get Kevin up for school. It was an interesting day. And I didn't get a nap. But I can laugh about it now that I've gotten a few nights of better rest.

In Mid-November or VoIP phone plan ended and we decided to switch to smart phones using Ting. We've just had a home phone up till now and this is the first time we've had cell phones other than a pay-as-you-go phone that we used when we were first married. Generally it's been nice to have a cell phone. I like that I can have my calendar on there and have it ring at me to remind me to do things, and I do feel a little more prepared for emergencies knowing that I have a phone with me when I'm out driving. The camera is fun. It's been a useful tool. I also deliberately didn't install the Facebook app on there and I think that's helped curb my Facebook use. I've been using an app called ColorNote to take notes or make to-do lists, which is nice because I can just add to my lists whenever I think of something instead of hoping I'll remember it when I can get on the computer. But I'm still getting used to having something ding at me all the time, even if I did tell it to do it. It kind of depends on how busy I am on any given day.

Heidi's preschool group sang at a nursing home (12/9). We practiced Christmas songs for several weeks so that the kids would actually sing and they all did a great job. For the most part the kids sang along and they knew all the words. After the singing we helped the kids pass around Christmas cards that they had helped make on Monday. The residents at the nursing home seemed to really enjoy it. They were so friendly and they clearly loved having the children around, which made the effort we had put into it so rewarding. They asked us to come back again, so we are probably going to go again around Easter.