Say Ahh!

We had our ENT appointment on Thursday and pretty much got the news that we were expecting to hear... Grant's going to get PE tubes. It turns out that he still has some fluid in his ears from the last round, but right now he doesn't have an ear infection. However, that fluid isn't going anywhere, so it is very likely that if we do not do anything, he will get another infection (I guess it's like a petri dish in there, ready to grow bacteria). He will get the tubes put in on Tuesday, February 2nd. From what we understand, it is a very quick procedure, but they have to do it under anesthesia. Since it is such a tiny incision, it should be a fast recovery for him and he should be back at school the following day. The tubes should stay in for about 8-12 months, which makes us wonder if we will be going through this again next year (because he is fairly young to be having this done). But we can't worry about that right now. This procedure should improve his health now and it is better than fighting ear infections every other week for the next 3 months. Also, this way we don't compromise his hearing!

The good news is that he has felt much better this week and is definitely back to his usual self. He felt so good that we were able to go to his first kid party last night. It was for his friend, Andrew March's 1st birthday. It was fun to see him watch the other kids and know that in the near future, he will be running around with them.

Also, here are some pictures from New Years Day at my Grandma's house. I took some pictures with my mom's new camera so didn't have these before our last post.

Grant with his Grandma, cousin Julia, and Grandpa

Grant with my Aunt Max

Opening another present

Three strikes

Here we go again... Grant's sick, which means that Dad is also sick and soon will be Mom. We found out last Monday that Grant has his third ear infection! The weekend before we noticed that he had a pretty bad cough, but didn't have a fever or seem fussy. We were somewhat shocked by the news also because he had just had his 6 month well baby check up the previous Friday and the pediatrician wasn't too concerned with his cough. She did however notice that he had some residual fluid in one of his ears, but it was not infected at that time and she thought that it could have been left over from the ear infection he had right before Christmas. Thinking that it was nothing more than a cough, we went ahead and took him to school on Monday.

Of course later on that morning, the school called Shannon to tell her that he wasn't eating very much and they were worried about his breathing. I took him back to the pediatrician who discovered that both his ears were now infected (his lungs and breathing were OK). It was his 3rd ear infection in 7 weeks, which means that he was prescribed a 3rd (different) antibiotic and he bought himself a trip to the Ear, Nose, & Throat doctor this coming Thursday. Unlike the other ear infections, this one has taken a little longer for him to recover. Previously, he would feel better after only one day of being on the antibiotics, however this time he also has a cough which has seemed to make his illness much worse. This weekend his cough has improved but hasn't gone away completely, overall though he is in a much better mood. We feel like we finally got our smiling, fun-loving Grant back. I'm improving as well with the peak of my coughing and sore throat having been on Wednesday and Thursday. Somehow Shannon seemed to escape the cold bug initially, however said today that she feels like she's finally catching it. Hopefully we'll all 3 be healthy soon!

It's been a while since our last post, so I want to briefly touch on our Midwest tour between Christmas and New Years. As our devoted readers know, we were delayed in leaving because of I-70 being closed, however this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Instead of driving the entire way to Tulsa, we were only able to travel about 6 hours and therefore made it to Salina, KS to stay the night. It worked out better that way because Grant spent most of the time in the car sleeping. We then finished up the drive on Sunday and made it to Tulsa by early afternoon. Tulsa was still recovering from the blizzard (which meant 6 inches of snow!) that hit them around Christmas, but we had fun celebrating Grant's first Christmas - round 2, opening gifts, playing card games, and seeing family and friends.

Jeremy and Valerie with Grant

On Wednesday (12/30), we made the trip up to Kansas City so that we could go out to dinner with some of my high school friends and our friends from KU. It was great to catch up with everyone and to see how much their families are growing (there were 11 adults, a 3 yr old, a 1 yr old, a 7 month old, a 6 month old and 1 on the way). Thursday we headed to Lawrence to eat lunch with Erin, Todd, and Alex, and Grant got his first sight of his future school in 17 years. New Years Eve we went out to eat with Beth and Matt at the Blind Tiger Brewery (home of the GABF's gold medal wheat beer) in Topeka before heading to my Grandma's house in Winchester. On New Years Day almost all of my family (both sides) came over to my Grandma's to meet Grant. He had a great time meeting everyone and was worn out by the evening! Then it was back to Colorado on Saturday. The drive home took longer than it has ever taken us because our stops were much longer and Grant got very tired of his car seat 7 hours into the trip. Regardless, it was well worth it as we were able to spend time with everyone, but we're definitely open to having visitors out here next time...

Grant with Great-Grandma Scrivner

To close, here's a video of Grant dancing along with a his 'Sillytown' toy that he got for Christmas from Gigi and Papa. We're looking forward to seeing who's dance moves he inherited...