Every day I learn something new

I feel like every day is full of new revelations for me. Yesterday, I learned that Gracie can almost feed herself with a spoon when she is at Day Care. I don't let her touch a spoon when she is at home. No wonder she gets so frustrated with me. Luke will dance to any, and I mean any, music that comes on. He'll dance to commercials, Jack's Big Music Show, Elmo, 80s music, anything!

So, when I had to take Gracie to the doctor's office on Monday because she was sick, I did not have a clue that children this young could have ears full of wax. I mean, seriously! They haven't been around long enough for wax to accumulate, right? The doctor had to try to scrape wax out of Gracie's ears because he could not see her inner ear. When that did not work, we had to have drops put in and a lavage done. Let me tell you, this was not fun. I do not relish the thought of having to hold down a sick and screaming Gracie ever again.

This was Gracie's second ear infection in one month, so the doctor decided to put her on a new antibiotic, Augmentin. Make sure you remember this, because if you ever get the amazing opportunity to host Little Miss Who at your house, she is never, ever to have Augmentin. I mean never!

The first night was not bad, but by the next day, she was rolling around on the floor wimpering in pain. She had awful diarreha and gas. By the second night, she would turn her face away from me and I had to force the antibiotic into her mouth (see the ear lavage paragraph for what this was like). By Wednesday, Gracie had spent two days having bad diarreha and fighting me like crazy when I went to give her the antibiotic. She would throw herself down on the floor and hit at anyone who tried to touch her. She screamed and cried, all the while wanting to be held.

Why I did not listen to her before that, I'll never know. Even though she does not know a lot of words, Gracie does communicate. If I were better at paying attention to what she is "saying" I would have figured this out sooner. Wednesday, she developed an incredibly awful diaper rash. I can't remember one that was worse. I had Ed call the doctor who advised stopping the antibiotic immediately. So we did. By Thursday night, Gracie was herself again, laughing, smiling, playing. I cried when I saw how happy she was. We have a new antibiotic and I have decided to have the words "No Augmentin" tatooed on Gracie's foot for future reference.

What kills me about all of this is that I have a sensitivity to Eurythromiacin and Ed has a sensitivity to a few other antibiotics. I can't believe it took me so long to figure out she was in pain because of that medicine. Shouldn't I have known sooner? Shouldn't I have been paying better attention to how she was hurting?

Sometimes, this Mommy thing sucks. I hate that I am learning so very early that I can't protect them from everything. They are such beautiful, wonderful babies and I never want to see them in pain like that again. But how do you stop it? You can't. And that's why I feel so helpless.

So, new lesson for today: Mommies aren't perfect. They don't have superhuman intuition and they can't keep their babies from every harm.

Maybe I can convince someone to give me x-ray vision though. I think I'm going to need it.