Yesterday morning Hadley started pulling on her right ear and then would let out a screech. I was not worried at first because at the same time she was trying to stuff her left fist into her mouth and when she would do this she would gag and then make the same screeching sound. Most of my morning yesterday consisted of trying to keep the fist out of the mouth- it went something like this: left fist in mouth, gagging sound, shrill cry, me pulling her hand out of her mouth, giggle, smile, tugging on right ear, screeching sound, try to put pacifier in, spit pacifier out, left fist back in mouth, gagging sound, shrill cry, me pulling fist out of mouth, BIG smile, try to distract with book, rattle, holding on my lap, tummy time, pulling on ear, shrill cry, fist back in mouth, rinse, wash, repeat. All morning. Then she just started pressing her ear with her hand and crying. Hadley rarely cries so this was considered ‘abnormal and fussy,’ behavior that I was told to watch for after her shots last Friday. So, make the call to the pediatrician and immediately the nurse says, ‘Oh no, she is pulling on her ear? She probably has an ear infection. Could you bring her in?’ Now, my side of the family has a long history of multiple ear infections so off we went to the doctor. Hadley continued to repeat her ear-fist activity from the morning for the nice nurse and doctor but once they could look at her ear- there was no infection and all was clear. The official diagnosis was either her slight congestion was putting pressure on her ears or she just discovered she has ears and is enjoying pulling on them.
While we were at the doctor she was weighed and is now 11 pounds 3 ounces. Also, she displayed her array of noises for the doctor- including humming and growling- and both the doctor and nurse were laughing. The doc was impressed with these and her early ability to roll herself onto her stomach and then freak out because she does not know what to do next. After all this excitement- this was Hadley for the rest of the afternoon.
Hadley now has more Tennessee orange gear (thanks to Jay and Tiffany). She has a whole set of socks that look like high top sneakers and Kerry was happy to discover the ‘best’ colored ones. They are pretty cute and are a perfect match to her UT onesies.
Otherwise all is well here. Kerry is back at work and his hip is feeling much better and I am going back to work very soon! More on that later.
all three of us 