Can You Hear Me Now?

Well, today I had to take Jacob & Hannah to Dr. Campbell's to get their ears checked. Their primary doctor thought that might have had something to do with their speech delay. Dr. Campbell put one of the children with the nurse and had me go in the sound proof room with the other child. First, we took in Jacob. He sat on my lap while Dr. Bob gave him a sheet of paper with some different pictures on it. He had to point at the pictures that Dr. Bob asked him to. Then, Dr. Bob put some earphones on Jacob and shut us in the sound proof room. He sat outside the room, but Jacob could still see him out the window. He asked Jacob to point at the pictures through the headphones to see if he could hear with them on. Then, we had to switch chairs in the sound proof room. There were 2 speakers on each side of us. On top of each speaker, there was a toy that made noise. Dr. Bob would play a toy on the left to see if Jacob would look left. Then, he'd play the toy on the right to see if he'd look in that direction. The last procedure he did with us in the booth was to make this 35 decibel sound. It sounded kind of like static on the TV when the channel goes off late at night. Maybe just a bit louder though. He let me know when he was going to do it so that I didn't jump out of my skin. Jacob jumped a bit when he made the sound, but didn't cry. Now, Hannah...that's another story. She named all the pictures perfectly and did great with the earphones. She liked the toys going off on either side of her, but when he did the static sound, she went NUTS!!!

After the sound proof room, we had to go into another part of the office. Here is where Dr. Bob looked inside their ears to check their ear drums. He said Jacob's was sucked in a bit in the right ear, but it was because that Jacob is a bit under the weather. Hannah's ears had a bit of a drainage and we're going to keep an eye on that. Dr. Bob said that could be why Hannah is always tugging on her ear and poking at it. The drainage could be making her ears itchy. We've been lucky so far (knock on wood) that neither Hannah nor Jacob have EVER had an ear infection, so I don't want to start it now. I hope her drainage is due to her just getting over a sinus infection and getting off of antibiotics. Dr. Bob said that could be it.

For anyone that doesn't know, we had to take our minivan off the road for legal reasons, so we put our old gray station wagon back on the road. We had it inspected while Dan and I were taking the kids out trick-or-treating and it was stickered when we were done. I get in the car and it's ticking like a time bomb!!! I asked Dan what that noise was and he said, "The oil pump is going bad, but as long as it keeps ticking, we're okay. It's when the ticking stops that we have to worry." So, the trip to Coudy was quite hair-raising this morning, to say the least. When the motor was cold, the oil was running at about 60psi, but as the motor warmed up, the psi got less and less. By the time I pulled into Dr. Bob's, we weren't registering anything on the meter at all. Talk about biting my nails. Here it is 40º weather and I'm hoping that I don't break down with two 3-year-old toddlers!!!

Stayed tuned for more...