I have been a bit neglectful here of late, and I know it. Trent has really needed me more the last few days. I took him to the doctor yesterday and she told me he has an ear infection, which would explain the fevers that have gone as high as 102 degrees, even with Motrin. Motrin is great stuff, so this must be one miserable ear infection.

This also explains why he screamed when I tried to take his temperature with the new thermometer Larry bought that reads body temperature through the ear. I switched immediately from his left to his right ear, but by then the pain had already been inflicted because in order to get the thermometer in the right position it is necessary to pull the ear out just a little.

The doctor gave me Zithromax, which is a wonderful, fast working, strong antibiotic that works exceptionally well, but it does have a rather undesirable side effect. Not all of the time, but just sometimes, it gives little kids horrible diarrhea. This is one of those times. So now instead of just crying because his ear hurts and he feels bad in general, he's upset because his tummy is all hurty.

Wow. List that last sentence in the category of things only a mom would say.

His tummy is all hurty.

That's right up there with if you keep making ugly faces at people your face will freeze that way, you just wait and see, and for goodness sake, wear a jacket. Nothing pisses off a twelve year old like the dreaded wear your jacket, especially if you say it to them in front of their friends. Twelve year olds, boys especially, have some unexplainable aversion to all things jacket, i suppose for the same reason they don't want to use napkins.

They're for sissies.

They really think that. I had a friend years ago whose boyfriend was the maintenance guy at the school John attends and he heard them talking to one another about it. This was valuable information because I had no idea why my son kept coming home with food smeared all over his pants. I started sending him to school with napkins in his pockets so we could try to extend the life of his clothes, only to see food smeared all over them again later in the afternoon. He had no answer about why this was, other than to say, "I forgot." I later asked him about the napkins are for sissies theory and he confirmed it.

They are in fact, considered sissyfied by adolescent boys everywhere.

Apparently looking like a slob and smelling like a five hours old school lunch is cool.

Anyhoo....

So it turned out to not be a viral infection. Yay! Viral infections in small children can take up to two weeks to get better. Trentimus should be starting to feel better within the next few days.

We were sure the doctor was going to say it was a viral infection. That's what the doctors have told us at almost every office visit since September, especially for Zoe, who had a rather rough flu season this go-round. I jokingly remarked to Sir Lawrence yesterday that I could take one of the kids in with an eye hanging from the socket by the stringy things (how's that for a technical medical term? I'm Marcus Freaking Welby here), and they'd claim it was a virus and would go away in a week or two.

Of course, the real problem would be what to do about keeping the eye close to the face until mother nature reeled that bad boy back in. That, and keeping the other kids from going on and on about it.

"EYE'm sorry, EYE thought you were EYEing, I mean, watching tv, so EYE didn't want to disturb you."

"Hey, EYE was using that!"

"EYE EYE Captain! AArrrgh!"

That last one is probable during an episode of Spongebob.

Knowing my kids, the most likely situation would be to wait until they saw the kid with the hanging eye scratching his good eye, then say, "Hey! Wouldn't it be easier to just rub that against your shirt?"

Granted, John is the only one who currently has the vocal skills to say it, but the other two have inherent smartassery. One day they'll be saying things like that too.

A mommy just knows.