Any parent who has a kid prone to ear infections will tell you that they’ve considered buying an otoscope and learning how to use it. It is so frustrating to go into the doctor for a two minute exam just to be told it’s nothing – and then it’s even more frustrating to go back in two days later to find out your kid has a raging ear infection. Anyway, Gary and I have talked about buying an otoscope regularly, and after my friend Cathy recommended the same thing, a couple of weeks ago we bought this one. We figured that if it saves us just one trip to the doctor (and the copay) that it will pay for itself. After a few nights of Penelope not sleeping particularly well, and as she was getting over a cold, she started hitting her ears and temple while nursing (which is what she did the last two times she had an ear infection). I told Gary that she may have an ear infection. He pulled out the otoscope and pronounced her left ear fine, but said that he couldn’t see her right eardrum due to some earwax. So, we went to the pediatrician’s office yesterday morning to check on Penelope’s right ear.
The pediatrician was impressed with Gary’s ear infection diagnosing skills and said that her left ear was indeed fine – and that once the earwax in the right ear was moved that her right ear was fine, too. Our pediatrician thinks that Penelope is just feeling some transferred pain from teething and recommended that we use her ear drops to numb her ears a little bit to give her some relief.
We did find out that Penelope now weighs 17 pounds 1 ounce – which is almost a pound more than Rosemary weighed at one year. That is a gain of 20 ounces in 21 days. That’s newborn baby weight gain. I suppose that’s what happens when a 7-month-old has a snack or two in the middle of the night for a few weeks. . . .
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