Better than Expected

This week Jason's parents are here visiting. Last week in preparation for their visit, we decided that it was finally time to move Eli's crib into Lucas' bedroom. It was always the intent for the boys to share a room. In fact, all of Eli's things were in Lucas' room except for the crib. It's just been so easy to let the boys sleep in separate room up to this point. Eli still cries in the night occasionally, especially when he has a cold or is teething. Lucas has never been a great sleeper (for years he would wake up between 4:30-5:00am and come into our room). Despite all this, I knew the time was approaching that we needed to move the crib and with Jason's parents coming, it seemed like the perfect time. I was incredibly nervous how it was going to go. I envisioned many sleepless nights dealing with Eli crying and keeping Lucas awake. Eli was completely in the middle of moving the crib. As I was taking it apart and putting it back together, Eli was climbing in, out, and around the crib. He was interested and smiling the whole time. Then after everything was situated, he just cried and cried. So you see why I was anticipating it being hard. Well, at bedtime I put Eli to bed first and then as Lucas was walking into the room to get into bed, Eli just smiled great big. You could tell that he was so happy to have Lucas in the room with him. And bedtime was no trouble at all! Eli just listened to Lucas' bedtime story and then at lights out, both boys just snuggled down and not a peep was heard from the other side of the bedroom door! It's been 6 days now and all is well.
Lucas had his appointment with the audiologist this morning. Needless to say I was pretty nervous... what will come of this? I was trying to be rational... this appointment would give us some insight into what is causing Lucas' hearing loss... then we can try to figure out how to fix the problem. But I was still nervous. The appointment went extremely well. The audiologist was great with Lucas... she knew exactly how to talk to him. His favorite expression of hers was "let's see if there are any potatoes growing in your ears". That just made him laugh (he said she was "pretty silly"). So moving on to the results. Turns out that the cause of his hearing loss is a buildup of fluid. The audiologist said that the clear fluid is easily missed during an exam (especially if the inner ear is not inflamed). There are apparently a handful of reasons for this fluid buildup, ranging from allergies to defective Eustachian tubes. Therefore, Lucas has been referred back to the pediatrician for an evaluation and I don't know if it'll be a range of trial and error attempts to figure out the cause (starting with a prescription decongestant) or if the doctor can just look in Lucas' ears and be able to determine on sight the cause. I guess I'll find out at this next appointment, which will be scheduled once the results are received at the pediatrician's office.

I'm sure that I mentioned in a previous post about our leaky drain valve on our hot water heater. Well, we were determined to fix it ourselves... build up our home maintenance confidence a little bit. I bought the replacement valve and printed off the directions on how to replace it. Jason started the water draining out of the tank, we felt that we were on our way. Cut to nearly four hours later and the water was STILL draining from the tank, it was down to a trickle that never ended. An hour later, it was still trickling, but we decided to go ahead and just try it (we prepared for the mess and everything). That stubborn old valve would not budge no matter how hard we tried... and believe me, we tried! So after all that, I ended up going to the hardware store and buying a hose cap. We wasted 66 gallons of water and nearly 5 hours (into Jason's sleep time) to end up capping it off. It isn't dripping anymore, so that's good. Lesson learned - sometimes the shortcut is the best and only way??

I'm leaving tomorrow on a short solo trip back to Missouri. My littlest sister is graduating high school - congratulations, Rachael! I am really excited about having some time without the kids, but at the same time, I'm finding that relinquishing control is an emotional hurricane. Can you tell this is my first time going anywhere for more than a couple of hours without the kids?? I know they'll be fine... but will I???