sea legs

here's a little taste of what holden is up to these days.  this was his first attempt at the johnny jump up, the much-praised contraption from mommies the world over.  i've been told i can get some serious time out of this thing so here's to hoping he comes to love it.

also, you will see, holden is a bit of a night owl and has no less energy at 10pm than right smack dab in the middle of the day.  he is screeching until he goes down for the night, which you may think would be obnoxious, but it never. gets. old...ever.  it's truly the best sound in the world and you just can't help but smile.  i wish adults made such joyous, delightful sounds as well...which reminds me, please excuse my annoying voice...i had to mask it with a great coldplay song about a swing.

i should also point out that i took this video yesterday.  as i mentioned in an earlier post, he has had a little runny nose and a mild-but-lingering cough for a few weeks.  so, i called the good doctor who asked that i bring him in just to make sure it's nothing but the typical cold.  this morning i scooted on in thinking that we'd be in and out and this was just one of the 12 colds he's supposed to get in the first year.  the nurse first took his temperature with an ear thermometer and, strangely, he started really getting worked up over it.  this is a little out-of-the-ordinary for holden since, at this age, he doesn't ever really expect to know what's going on so he's very much a go-with-the-flow kind of baby.  then, the doctor came in to look at his ears and had to clean some of the little earwax out of the depths of his ear canal.  so, after she takes a peak her words are, "that ear is awful."  my first thought was, "oh dear, how embarrassing.  the doctor is commenting on how dirty i've let my baby's ears get."  no, she was actually talking about his massive ear infection.

to sum it all up, holden had not one single symptom of an ear infection and he ends up having what even the pediatrician calls an "awful" ear infection.  this baby has quite a pain tolerance.  his other ear was also really bad and, on a chart of the progression of ear infections, she pointed to the image directly before "rupture" when describing the severity of his infection.

so, while i feel like mother of the year for letting it get to this point (to be fair, not a single fuss or ear touching to signal ear pain), i have to say i greatly admire holden's ability to "rise above" his pain and really take the johnny jump up by storm...with or without the shooting pains in the sides of his head.

and that's about all we have going on here.  i'll keep you posted on little holden's ear trials and tribulations but here is some visual candy of the little man in the mean time.