Saturday: So It Has Not Been A Week To Write Home About

So last week, it seems that things were going well and then Thursday was so dull it did not bear mentioning, Friday was busy and I did not have access to my computer, and then Saturday, Ivan mentioned that his ear hurt.  I acknowledged this.  It occurred to me that he had been swimming more than usual that week; that there could be some trapped water in his three-year-old ear canal.  We put in a few ear drops and everyone went to bed like it was their job.  Totally normal, totally pleasant.

We were staying at my parent's house, where Ivan has his very own big boy bed, and I was holed up in bed with a book.  We went to sleep at a reasonable hour and then at 1:00 AM Ivan started sobbing in his bed, I went in to check, his ear was sticking straight out and bright red and I knew that swimmer's ear was upon us.  Having suffered many a time with swimmer's ear, I was wracked with guilt for not recognizing the signs.  It is so painful.  I also sort of hated my life, because in this stage of my confinement, it is more unpleasant than usual to be woken at 1:00 in the morning to comfort and administer tylenol.  Tylenol was only had after tramping down a flight of stairs in the dark, rummaging through my mother's unfamiliar medicine cabinet and then feeling my way back upstairs to talk a miserable Ivan into taking it.  It was even more unpleasant when I had to do it again at 4:00 in the morning.

Upon waking, we counted the minutes for the opening of the convenient care where Ivan melted down as we had to allow a nurse practitioner to poke about his ear, before diagnosing and prescribing antibiotic drops for swimmers ear.  We left the convenient care and drugstore with a prescription, two kinds of pain reliever to bring down fever and quell ear pain, two lollipops, a picture than Ivan drew while waiting for the nurse practitioner, and a remote control car for our troubles.  At home, it took myself and my mom to wrestle Ivan down for the administration of ear drops while he howled.

After the administration of baby tylenol and eardrops, I hoped against hope for a good nap from Ivan which in turn meant that I could have a good nap, but he was only able to nap until the baby tylenol wore off.  I at least thought that Ivan would sleep through the night, but it was not so.  Nor would it be so for the next three nights.  Ivan woke up every time the tylenol wore off and that was four consecutive nights of waking every three hours.  It was brutal.

By the fourth night, when Ivan woke up crying, it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed and administer tylenol.  It was so exhausting that I just laid around my parents house all day like there was a carbon monoxide leak.  Ivan's remote control car broke, and I dragged myself back to the drugstore to purchase another as it bought me more couch time.  All I wanted was couch time.  Now, I will say, that after two days of prescription and tylenol, Ivan improved.  He was able to play with his remote control car and I was able to read.  AND READ I DID!!!

I read:

• State of Wonder, by Ann Patchet
• The New Yorker's study of the later career of Clarence Thomas
• Vogue's review of Tom Ford's New Makeup Line
• Vogue's study of Jon Huntsman
• W's article about Antony Hegerty or Antony and the Johnson's

I thought:

• State of Wonder was fabulous.  I could hardly put it down.
• I will never engage in any sort of argument about the constitution with Clarence Thomas or his wife.  THEY WILL ALWAYS WIN.
• I love Tom Ford, and I generally think he has loads of common sense in a fashion world where you don't see a lot of it.  Also, his new cosmetics line has a nail polish called "bitter bitch" and after my fourth sleepless night with Ivan, I KNEW that I would OWN IT and WEAR IT.  It became the summation of what I was.
• I like Jon Huntsman more than I thought, though not all of my suspicions are quelled.  
• Antony Hegerty has a haunting voice, and I found him kind of thrilling.  

Potty Training Update:

• A consistent dosage of tylenol, I learned the hard way this week, gives Young Sloan projectile diarrhea. 
• We completely stopped potty training during this bleak period and went back to full on diapers.
• When we arrived back home from my parents house, someone miraculously insisted on wearing his underwear and began using the potty like it was his job.

Anyway, then disaster struck again when on Tuesday. We noted that Ivan was having multiple other cold symptoms, and it was found that his swimmers ear had migrated into his middle ear causing terrible drainage, infection and cold symptoms.  We started another antibiotic. We stayed at home for three more days until both Ivan and I were so bored with each other that on Thursday afternoon we were each bleakly watching TV in separate rooms and groaning like Lurch from the Adams family when we passed each other in the hall.  

On Friday, we finally made a triumphant return to swim at the Indoor Swim Complex which reopened this week after being shut down for repairs through the month of August.  Today, I was able to swim in the outdoor lap pool at the Maryland Farms YMCA.  Ivan is virtually symptomless, and I feel that I can rejoin the living.  It is good times, with the sun shining a bit more brightly and the world seeming a bit more like Willy Wonka