Minor Surgery

It’s 8:33pm and I’m a few hours from home in a hotel room, typing with a blanket over my laptop as Paul sleeps a few feet from me in a pack n’ play.  He didn’t nap today (which resulted not in crabbiness but hilarity- what a funny kid!) and he didn’t want to go to bed either.  But I finally showed him that he had a familiar blanket and stuffed animal, so he seemed to be able to finally settle in.

Tomorrow Paul has minor surgery for ear tubes!  Seriously, this is easy stuff.  7:30am surgery time, 9am finished at the latest, an hour of recovery, and we’ll be on the road back home.  Normally, ear tubes don’t even take that long, but lucky Paul also gets to have a hearing test done while he’s out cold.  We know he can hear, but we aren’t sure how well he can hear at certain frequencies.  Certain frequencies that are necessary for speech.

It seems Providential to me that we are even having this done because up until a couple months ago, it was probably one of the furthest things from my mind.  But now, the night before, I have a few hopes for these ear tubes.  The first, of course, would be improved hearing for Paul, which would lead to more babbling and words, a greater awareness/alertness to surroundings, and more interaction and engagement with his environment.  The second would be comfort, because having pressure behind your ears doesn’t feel so great.  I am also hoping that this comfort results in less head banging on his part.  I’m not entirely sure why he bangs his head, but he wants that sensory input for some reason.  He does it when frustrated, but it could also be tied into increased discomfort in his ears.  Who knows.  I’ll probably have to do some more things to help him stop hitting his head on things (helmet, sensory diet), but I’m hoping that the corrected pressure in his ears will help.  Lastly, I’m hoping the ear tubes will help with the whole wax situation.  Because gross.

So if you think of it, please whisper a prayer for Paul- that this little event will expand his world a bit and make him more able to soak it all in. :)

Lastly, sorry I have been absent.  But whoa have we had a great few months!  I really have to update you, most especially on preschool!  That post will come soon, along with some photo dumps from late Summer.  And I’ll let you know how this whole tube thing turns out.