Will The Trial Never End?

The poor Bug - I'm not sure she's getting better. I mean, she is definitely better than she was a couple days ago, because she's smiling and playing again. However - it still looks like her ears hurt pretty badly when I lie her down flat. She cries and bats at both of her ears. I don't know if the antibiotic isn't working because she's not taking enough of it (meaning, she is spitting too much out), or if she just still has too much congestion in her head for her ears to feel better.

She is still waking up REALLY often at night and is nearly impossible to get back to sleep. She is tired and really wants to go back to sleep, but it just doesn't seem to be happening. Until she's been awake for a couple hours and just can't stay awake any longer. I forsee another trip to the doctor's office next week if this doesn't clear up soon. Today and tomorrow she will have her last two doses of antibiotic. Today she is more congested and is coughing more than she was yesterday, and nose is running more. We'll see what happens... of course, as luck would have it, our doctor's last day at work before vacation (or whatever - maybe it's a convention) was last Thursday. He's out for two weeks now. There are other doctors in the office, but the one there who most often sees children is... not our kind of person. VERY opinionated and pushy about what she feels is the right thing - she's one of those doctors who doesn't give parents the benefit of the doubt and doesn't seem to think that we can have working brains and our own educated opinions, because WE don't have medical degrees. I guess we can ask to see someone else. I think they're all family physicians. I should really find the girls a pediatrician up here, but I think that since we've already taken this problem to our current doctor and have called in and talked with his physician's assistant, we need to finish this out with the people who know what's going on.

Can I just say, I'm so bummed about the ear infections. This is the first time either of the girls has had one (well, actually they both have two). I'm very happy that Sweet Pea made it 3.5 years without one, but am bummed that The Bug didn't make it through the first year without one. I remember when Sweet Pea was a baby, our doctor said that if a baby can make it through the first year without an ear infection, they're doing very well. Oh well. This cold apparently lent itself to ear infections, since there was so much phlegm involved. Yech. And The Bug DID make it 8 months. She never even had a cold or anything until she was 6 months old. So I guess she's still doing pretty well.