ER and school decisions

Well we have had an exciting few days (for the grandparents- Austin is fine now, so keep that in mind as you read). Wednesday night (or Thursday am to be exact) about 1 am I woke up hearing Austin screaming. I ran in his room and he was crying and screaming that his ear hurt and he had his hand over his right ear. I picked him up and he just kept screaming. Not just like he was crying hard but he was screaming at the top of his lungs and stiffening in pain. We gave him some Tylenol and called our SOS insurance to talk to a doctor. He continued to scream with no stopping and we decided to go to the ER- I had never seen him in pain like this. We called the Hunemullers and Jason graciously drove us to the ER (we left Bennett sleeping at home with Angie on call to listen out for him). Austin screamed the whole drive there and kept having waves of worsening pain where he would stiffen up. I was pretty scared and felt so helpless as a parent, unable to do anything to help him. At one point he said "Mommy when will I ever be happy again?"

We got to the ER and they took all his vitals and he had no fever. They gave him a strong dose of ibuprofen and within 20 or 30 minutes he was feeling better and not screaming. The doctor looked at his ear and basically could not see much . He said his ear looked a little swollen and he couldn't see the ear drum. He started him on antibiotics and made an appointment for an ENT the next day. We went home and he slept fine the rest of the night and woke up not in pain. We went the next day to the ENT and she said his ear was so full of ear wax she could not see in the ear canal. So she sent us home with ear wax softener drops and more antibiotics. We go back tomorrow morning to hopefully get the wax flushed out so they can get a good look at his ear. Most likely it is just a bad infection that the antibiotics are already helping with, but we want to make sure. And Chris has excessive ear wax (he has been told) so maybe that is heriditary.

This was my first time as a parent to have my child really be in pain and feel so helpless. It was not a fun feeling, but we are thankful he seems fine now and has not been in any more pain. And I am so thankful that there is a good hospital with English speakers for moments like this.

We are also still debating the preschool options. We visited the local, public one that is literally next door to our front gate. It looked nice and has a regular part and a Montessori part. They have never had a foreigner or anyone go less than 5 full days, but are willing to consider letting him come 3 half days. BUT it will probably be expensive- they didn't seem willing to give a discount for coming half days. The Montessori option was almost twice as expensive, but had smaller class size with more teachers and a better way of disciplining disobedience in my opinoin. The first school- which is pretty like minded to many of our values and is small, inexpensive and where Bree is going- is the one that won't allow less than 5 half days. A third option near the first one we looked at will allow 3 days at a more reasonable rate, but is bilingual and won't give him as much exposure to Chinese, but does have violin as part of the program 2 days a week. SO, these are our choices and we hope to decide by Monday. Pray for our decision and what is best for Austin and our family. I really am not leaning more towards any of them at this point.