The Cannon Hackett Chronicle: and I thought teething was bad...

Poor Ben has his first ear infection. While he suffered a lot every time a new tooth made its way to the surface of his mouth, this ear infection not only pains Ben during the day, but it has been causing him to wake up every 40 minutes to two hours at night. NOT fun. This is his fifth day on antibiotics, and last night he only woke up once, so I think (finally!!) he must be feeling better.

We discovered his ear infection in kind of a round-about way. After spending a lovely week in El Paso visiting my family, Ben and I flew home on Saturday. That evening, on our way back from dinner, a brightly colored ball bounced out in front of Clay's car. Clay hit the brakes, imagining a 5-year-old in hot pursuit of the ball, and we were rear-ended by a Land Rover going pretty fast. Ben immediately started screaming, which was really terrifying.

unhappy boy with an ear-ache

Clay pulled off the road and we immediately dashed out to check on Ben. The back of Clay's car was pretty smashed in, and it was hard for him to get the doors open on his side of the car. Luckily, once we had Ben out of the car seat and in our arms, he calmed down after about five minutes. It's amazing how much more scary everything is when your child is involved!

Anyway, after making a police report (the officer also helped Clay cut away part of the tire-well that was now scraping the back tire), we finally made it back home. Clay and I had pretty bad whiplash and went to the doctor to get checked out the next day. When we took Ben to get checked out by the doctor, she discovered his ear infection, which we've been battling all week.

In happier news, during his stay in El Paso, it seems like Ben hit another milestone: he now walks (instead of crawling) about 95% of the time. He mostly only crawls now when playing with a car toy or when he's really tired. Because he's getting so good at walking, I'm now putting shoes on him most times when we go out. Who knew getting a shoe onto the foot of another human being could be so tricky? Certainly not me.

I'm still in the process of getting what-used-to-be-the-pond transformed into a normal part of my yard. It's taking a whole lot more dirt that I imagined, and I'm having to go back and cut more holes in the plastic liner of the pond so it will drain properly. I hope that soon I can just plant some pretty foliage there, and have done with it!