Ear infections

This was from last week - again I a little behind on my posts: 

Mary Martin starting complaining last night that her ear hurt.  Uh oh.  She felt a little warm. Double uh oh. I got out the thermometer:  temp of 100.9.  Oh hell.

We had family photos planned for the next morning. A hurting, feverish toddler was not good pictures going to make. Forget going to the doctor before the photo shoot. Shoot starts at 9:30. Doctor probably gets in about 11. I loaded Mary Martin up with Tylenol and off we went. She wasn't great but we managed. I am sure there are some perfect shots. I will send the link to the gallery when they are ready.

The doctor thankfully could see us today. MM does in fact have a ear infection in one ear and drainage in her throat. The docteur said her ear tube was completely blocked. I got a prescription for an antibiotic, French Tylenol, and something else for pain with CODINE in it. CODINE for my two year old!?!  Really?  This only reinforces my theory that French children are meant to be seen and not heard. But that is a post for another day.

A word on our docteur:  he looks a little like Doc from Back to the Future, is not very patient with kids ( i.e. the kids can't put their shoes on the couches in his office).  But he came very HIGHLY recommended, has always had an appointment time for me when we needed it, and is willing to give out codine regularly, apparently.  So to the good docteur we go.

Sometimes though we go twice. You see the doctor doesn't have any vaccines in his office.  They are at the pharmacies. We get a prescription for the vaccine from the doctor, take the prescription to the pharmacy, get the vaccine, then go back to the doctor to have it administered. The French are masters at efficiency.

I was a little nervous that it would be a similar situation today. Perhaps that Mary Martin's antibiotic could only be administered by the doctor. We were saved that extra trip at least.  What I was not expecting, however, was that I had to mix MM's antibiotic myself. I got home with all our medicine - thinking can we all just take some of the codine and nap? - to find the antibiotic was in powder form. Oh hell.

So I get out the instructions which are in French of course. Mary Martin is in tears she is so tired and hurting. Once mixed, you administer the antibiotic with a spoon. Oh hell again. A spoon?!?!  Like MM is really going to let me place an entire spoon in her mouth and swallow all of its frothy white mixture I just whipped up.  Um, no.

Plan B:  you know those squirter things you get with children's motrin? I have perhaps a dozen of them. Good thing too. It was the only way to get that funky stuff down MMs throat.

Total time to fill and get antibiotic down MM:  45 minutes. Sheesh. She deserved a nap at that point. Hell I do.

The whole adventure made me miss (a) the "pink stuff" aka amoxicillian we had as kids that was cold and tasted like bubble gum and (b) my pharmacist dad.  He would have had that stuff mixed in 30 seconds.

Now, where is that codine?