Do Your Ears Hang Low?

My new pastime is visiting the pediatrician's office.

We've gone three times in the past five days. Three separate visits for three different kids with three varying ailments. It's just what we do.

I feel like I need to friend the office staff on Facebook since they pretty well already know all of my daily troubles as well as my weekend plans, and I know how their kids' sports teams are doing, what their holiday plans are, what their childhood Christmas decorations looked like (yes, really) and where they like to shop for shoes.

At today's appointment, I asked Dr. M what course we might expect Jack's current illness to take. I wasn't sure if I should snort or hang my head when he responded, "We'll, there's what I tell everybody else, and then there is what I tell your family."

He gets our weirdness. He knows from experience that Murphy's Law applies with a vengeance to my boys and their health.

Among other things (like rare syndromes no one has ever heard of and pretty much the gamut of behavioral health issues) we are particularly known for our cursed ears and their predilection for infection.

Last week, our ENT dug a giant wad of spongy fungus from Jack's left ear. Not really your everyday ear problem, but that's the way we roll.

That office visit was rather like something in a horror film. Let's not go there.

At our house, we plan ear tube surgeries like other families plan summer beach vacations.

Baby is already on the second ear infection of his short life and threatens to follow in the path of regularly recurring bulging red and painfully pus-filled inner-ears like his brothers.

"Maybe Truman won't have as many ear problems," Dr. M optimistically suggested at a recent visit. "You need ONE kid who has healthy ears."

Cluck, cluck, silly Dr. M. Don't you know that simply thinking something should be doesn't make it so?

Nevertheless, I value the concern. And the otoscope. And the endless supply of stickers.