A Birthday, Ear drum, and Pregzilla

We celebrated my sweet mom's 60th birthday last Thursday! I love my mom so much and can't imagine having anyone else in that spot. She's so selfless and giving to our family and I owe so much to her. Thank you mom for all that you do - you help me so much with Stella when I've been sick and you're such a great friend, too. You're just the best!

We also found out on Thursday that Stella had a ruptured ear drum. I had noticed her ear was kind of yucky and had been cleaning it out for a couple days when I noticed that there was a nasty smell coming from her ear {gross, I know...the things we go through as mothers!}. So, I immediately called the doctor and made an appointment for that next day. I knew that could NOT be normal, but I had no idea what it could be. Her appointment was after Mother's Day Out and when I picked Stella up the teachers showed me her ear and it had been bleeding. I was mortified and we rushed straight to the doctor. Of course, they happened to be running behind so we were there at 2:15 and didn't leave until around 4pm. :( Not fun! But, as soon as I told the doctor about the bleeding she guessed it was the ear drum that had ruptured. I was freaked out, but the doctor assured me {after checking Stella's ear} that it would not affect her hearing and that once the ear drum ruptures then she's not in any more pain. Poor angel! The doctor wasn't able to tell if it was an ear infection that was made worse by all our swimming or if it had been a bad case of swimmer's ear that caused this. Either way, we were sent home with some drops and all is better now!

In other Stella news - we're pretty much doing big girl panties all day now, except for nap and night times! We started this potty journey on New Year's Day and I've been super laid back about letting Stella show the interest in this. After she turned two, I knew I wanted to buckle down and I figured that it would take me forcing her to wear big girl panties so that she could actually FEEL what it was like to wet herself without a pull-up on. And sure enough, she only had two accidents in her panties and I'm so proud of her! We've done a couple outings in the big girl panties, because I'm so paranoid that she's going to be too preoccupied to tell me she has to potty, but so far she's proved me wrong. I'll probably try next week to start napping her in the panties, but we'll be doing pull-ups at night for a while, I'm sure. Now that potty training is in the bag, next up is the pacifier :( I tried taking this away in May and she basically played for two hours in her crib without napping. I wasn't ready for her to give up naps in any sort of way, so I was ok with giving it back to her. But, I'm thinking we might have to use the "paci fairy" or something!

Ok...I have to admit...even if it's just to myself, that I might be a pregzilla during my first trimester. I promise, I'm pretty happy-go-lucky my second and third trimesters {at least I was with Stella}, but this 5+ weeks of feeling yucky is pretty depressing! I know Blake is more than ready for me to feel back to normal and I certainly am, too. I've had a sinus infection that wasn't cleared up with amoxicillin, so now I'm onto a Z-Pack, and I'm praying that works....cause I'm on my way to ENT if this doesn't kick it! And I'm not sure if the sinus drainage {yuck!} or the pain from the headaches is making me throw up even more. But it is not ok! I don't remember the insomnia being too bad with Stella, but waking up in the middle of the night and then not being able to go back to sleep is frustrating. At least I'm catching up on some shows from the DVR :) We have to end on a happy note - so I'm excited for my second doctor's appointment tomorrow!!