He didn't get it from my side of the family

So, it's been an eventful last couple of weeks for our little noodle man. Not necessarily fun, but eventful. You see the little guy has been spending quite a bit of time in doctors' offices. Remember the little guy's spewing party that was described for you in detail during my Disney recap? And do you also recall how we thought it was due to monkey being allergic to the medicine, but the doctor thought croup? Well, it turns out that both hypotheses were wrong, but ours was the one that was closer to being right. Let me explain...

You see, when Chase was sick again after we switched antibiotics we knew that we were wrong. But when he didn't have any repeat occurrences after that first night of the trip, we thought it couldn't be croup since that was supposed to last for a few days at least, and he never really coughed all night long either. This put our little minds to work trying to think about what else it could be, and we came up with one common theme across all of his recent rashes, vomits, and wheezes: Honey Nut Cheerios.

So, we made an appointment with a pediatric allergist, and what do you know, the kid is allergic to almonds, peanuts, walnuts--basically all tree nuts. Now, we get to become very familiar with the EpiPen Jr., Benadryl, and ingredients labels while becoming less familiar with reese's cups, tagalongs & snickers bars.

On top of all of the appointments and blood work for the allergist, Chase got his 6th double ear infection of the year . So, off to the ENT we went. The doctor looked in his ear for 2 seconds and said, "He needs tubes." Apparently he's had fluid build up in his ear and an infection that never really went away. She also said that he's had some hearing difficulties which can help to explain why he often leaves off the beginning sounds of words. (uck, ase, ish) So, poor little guy has to go in for out patient surgery next week. We're told that the procedure itself is not too bad, but that Chase will still scream for an hour afterward because he's scared, hungry and just all around grumpy. Should be a good time.

Despite all of these recent health developments, the little guy is as happy as can be. We went to visit with cousin Nate over the weekend. They took us to an arcadey kinda place called Fun Expedition, and as you can see from the pictures, Chase wasn't letting his ears get in the way of his having a good time.




If anything, his time spent with medical professionals may have made him more loving. Case in point, on a recent trip to Lowes, the noodle thought the Tide bottles looked a little lonely, so he decided to hug them up a little bit. It looked just like the pictures in my last post except instead of a cuddly little bunny, he was hugging industrial sized bottles of soap. Being the generous soul he is, he couldn't contain his affection to just the laundry aisle, so he decided to spread the wealth to other areas of the store by snuggling up with paint bottles and yellow wet floor signs, too. My boy's a lover, not a fighter.