Thankful.

I am thankful for my family, especially my husband and daughter. I'm thankful for the time we were able to spend enjoying one another this weekend. Last week was a bit of a tough week. Sofia battled a fever throughout Tuesday night so I stayed home with her Wednesday and took her in to the doctor. Her left ear was blistered, pussy, and infected. Her left ear has actually been infected since August, a week after she started daycare. Her daycare is wonderful, she attends FLICC (The Foreign Language Immersion Childcare Center). We were on a waiting list for almost a year and it definitely isn't cheap but if I have to work, I want Sofia in the best possible place and Spanish immersion is a plus. It's amazing to see three and four year old kids running around speaking Spanish with beautiful accents. Anyways, Sofia has been on every antibiotic you can think of since August but they only seem to help her out temporarily, the ear infection has never completely healed and always come back stronger. It's odd too, because her right ear always looks perfect. Last week I brought her in to the doctor Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The doctors gave her a shot of Rocephin (equivalent to 30 doses of amoxicillan) each day. It was awful, Sofia is actually pretty tough when it comes to shots but her pediatrician warned me that these shots are especially painful. And you have to stay in the office for ten minutes after the shot to watch for any adverse reaction. Watching my poor baby suffer was awful. After three shots, the doctor told me her ear looked almost the same as it did Wednesday. We've been dragging our feet on ear tubes but the doctor told me we have no other option at this point. Two of the pediatricians in the practice came to the conclusion that the problem is likely something in her Eustachian tube that she was born with, especially since her right ear has never had any problems. I will take Sofia for a consultation with an ENT doctor this week, please keep her in your prayers.

I've been feeling very guilty about the entire situation. I find myself thinking maybe if I stayed home with Sofia she never would've gotten an ear infection to begin with. I would love to stay home but with Tim in his final year of optometry school it just isn't feasible. Even though we have the childcare expense, we still are able to pay some living expenses and have health insurance with my salary. I also felt committed to my school and the group of students I have this year, the only problem is I'd rather focus on teaching just one student, my daughter. Maybe someday this will be an option for me. This morning at church I took a lot of time reflecting and praying about the whole situation and I realized I really need to trust God and trust that things will work out.

The last two weekends we have had family in town, Tim's brother and his girlfriend and then my parents. We LOVE visitors but it definitely wears you out. This weekend Tim worked at the VA Hospital on Saturday and then we rushed off to Overton Park for a SVOSH fundraiser where we had our picture taken. We're hoping we might be able to use one of the pictures for a Christmas card or something. Sofia did not get the memo about Daylight Savings time and woke up nice and early Sunday morning so we took the opportunity to go out for breakfast at our favorite Memphis breakfast place, Brother Juniper's! It was amazing, as always. Then we enjoyed a great church service, some time at home, and a beautiful hike out in Shelby Forest.