ears

From the weekend after we celebrated Bennett's first birthday party back in mid September 2011 to the day after Christmas, our poor little man struggled with ear infection after ear infection, some never clearing up and some reoccurring. I felt like we didn't sleep very much many a nights and felt helpless for the little boy who constantly tugged at his ears. After trying three different antibiotics over the course of three months, nothing seemed to help all the trapped fluid behind both of his ears. So the day after Christmas, Jon and I packed Buggy up and went straight to the Urgent Care after another full day of fever and pulling his ears. We already knew the doctor was going to tell us double ear infections and we also knew that if he had one more infection, our pediatrician would schedule an appointment to the ENT. So after coming home with a pitiful baby and of course dreading the thought of our sweet baby having to have a procedure done, I called my neighbor, Nancy, a nurse. She got us in the next day at her office in Mobile and we met with an outstanding doctor. He took his first look in Bennett's ears and before he was able to adjust his thing-a-ma-bobber-ear-light in his ear, he immediately said the dreaded words I knew I would hear, but didn't want to hear. So we scheduled surgery 48 hours later.

Nervous. Wreck. Of. A. Momma.

My parents and Jon's parents met us in Mobile early, early Friday morning to sit with us during B's procedure. We walked into a room full of little people, all decked out in pajamas, and all with nervous parents and grandparents tagging along. Jon and I were able to take Bennett back to get him prepped for surgery and then they took him, screaming crying all the way down the hall... You want to talk about heartache... I can't even explain. Jon and I were taken to a private waiting room where I cracked open the top to my Diet Coke and opened a magazine. By the time I got to the third or fourth page of the magazine, the doctor came to let us know sweet boy was okay and in recovery. It only took ten minutes, and although it was a short time period, anyone with children know that it felt like an eternity. Thank goodness it wasn't any longer length of time, because I may have needed to be heavily sedated.

We got him out of recovery and headed home. After the three of us took a long nap, we awoke to a very happy and energetic little boy. He was like a different child! Obviously the draining of all that trapped fluid gave him instant relief and you could tell within hours that he felt great again. Our healthy, big chunk Bennett was back! And within days he was talking a lot more and speaking much more clearly than he had been in the past couple of weeks.

We have had one ear infection since the surgery, however, his ears drained perfectly and one dose of antibiotics knocked it out of the park :)

Francy playing with B the evening before surgery - 12.28.11, 15 mths

It was always hard to believe he was so sick and in pain because this was his disposition 9 out of 10 times!




Just watching the tube.

This is for Sue and Jay - looky what B is pulling! He loved his Christmas gift from you :)

Christmas 2011 in March 2012 :)

I am going to blog our Christmas 2011 through photos (which I'm sure is a relief to many of you since I tend to get long-winded with explanations and detail... and I just did it again with this).

Anna Reese, Stella and Currie hosted a Christmas Pajama Brunch for all their little buddies and boy, oh boy, did those little rascals have a ball!

Great food, cute little people tables dressed with Christmas decor


Buggy making his excited entrance in his Christmas Jammies! - 12.08.11, 15 months

Bennett and Frank getting down to business - play, play, play!

Cupcakes - a Momma and B all time favorite!


Anna Reese and Stella's Elf on the Shelf monitored the cupcake tray (probably monitoring me!)

Just a glimpse of the absolute hysterical chaos of 12 little buddies opening each others gifts - pure fun!

Anna Reese picked B's present from under the tree :)

Below are our best attempts at a group photo - this cracks me up because all of us mommas' try this everytime we get together and everytime we get together it ends in screaming kiddos and hysterical laughing mommas'! Maybe it's more for our entertainment than to remember to show them these photos when they are graduating high school :) I don't think entertainment is too much to ask for every once in awhile?!


I love how Tucker is looking at B in this picture like 'What is wrong with you?"


Sweet Wright joined us too!

Big Chunk helping me with Christmas decor - 12.14.11, 15 mths



Such a huge help (with a lil sarcasm mixed in)

If there's one thing I LOVE more than designing Christmas Cards, it's receiving them!





Hey Mil Mil!

My attempt of having a 15 month old build a ginger bread house - 12.15.11, 15 months

And he just wanted to eat everything in the package :)

Sadly, this is as far as we got with the gingerbread house bc toddler, plus candy, plus icing, plus on top of kitchen island equals a slight heart attack waiting to happen. Which this all makes me laugh because if you know me, you know I'm a perfectionist and when I have my mind set on something I like to get 'er done asap, so to leave the ginger bread house on my counter in this condition to which turned into 9 more days was absolute torture for me to have to walk by it everyday. I would try not to look in that direction of the kitchen for fear of putting off my Christmas list shopping to conquer the dang thing.

Wales West to meet Santa! - 12.18.11, 15 months old

The first sight and sounds of the whistling choo choo train :)



Too cute for words

Loading the choo choo!

Heading to the North Pole (can you see Jon's excitement?)




Below is the photo sequence in Big Boy meeting Santa... I don't need to even put captions above each picture for you to see how quickly Bennett was out of there!







Bennett made the nice list!

Cal Cal came to stay with us!!! - 12.19.11, 15 mths

Callie and Jon making Santa Cookies (And No we normally don't eat that many oranges! They were a gift from one of Jon's clients)



Our fat Christmas Tree Cookies!

Callie offered to finish the gingerbread house since I'm sure she was tired of looking at it on the counter too!



The presents are wrapped and ready for Christmas Day!


We spent Christmas Eve in Gulf Shores with the McArthur/Anderson/McDonald crew. We had the best time with my family just relaxing by the beautiful view of the Gulf, eating, having a few cocktails, eating, visiting, opening gifts and eating some more.

Sweet Grandpa!

JoJo and Big Chunk! - 12.24.11, 15 mths

Our view from the balcony

We even got to see Nelson for Christmas :)

Uncle Bob brought some AMAZING cheeses from Vermont (and if you know Jon and I, we didn't leave the cheese tray from the time we got to the beach house to the time we left!)

Incredibly delicious feast!



JoJo, Francy and wild man - 12.24.11, 15 mths

Jitterbug looks like she was full too!

Hi handsome :)

B and Nelson playing - this is the first day Bennett ever successfully climbed a chair... He didn't umpteen times that night and has been climbing everything in sight ever since... including stacking all of his toys to get higher and higher.

Ms. Jean joined us for Christmas Eve

Uncle Bob :)

Sweet Baby Mamy

Francy might have had a little wine on Christmas Eve!

B eating all the wrapping paper - like I've said before... he doesn't miss a meal.

We returned home to leave cookies and milk for Santy Claus and woke up the next morning to find he had a few nibbles and sips!

The stockings were hung by the armoire with care and looks like someone filled them :)

A few of the gifts B found from Santa!

Handy man

Grandpa came for Christmas morning!

Miller keeping his tennis balls safe that Santa left in his stocking

Don't worry, B had a banana and polished off Santa's cookies for breakfast!

Flaky butter biscuits and

hashbrown casserole for Christmas breakfast!

Jacob at MawMaw and PawPaw's!

These two peas in a pod

Notice the size - they look like twins... the catch... Emilie is 6 months older! Big Boy!

After breakfast at our house, lunch at MawMaw and PawPaw's, we then ventured over the The Lieb's for Christmas dinner where B fell in love with his lawnmower.

He also loved the Shark vaccum.

And sorry ladies, this one is taken :)


Our Christmas 2011 was absolutely wonderful, spent with lots of friends and family. It always makes me so sad to see how quickly the Christmas season flies by, but I'm so thankful to have shared it with the ones we love. And before you know it, it will be here again and I will still be doing my last minute (day before) Christmas shopping! So here's a Merry Christmas to you all, and a Happy St. Patrick's Day - hahaha... You thought I was going to say New Year's!