Unfun Birthday

My little Eva Alexandra is now a whole hand old! I wish I could say we had a nice, family night on her birthday but, unfortunately, that did not end up being the case. At the suggestion of her Montessori teacher, who said she's been struggling with letter sounds and has not been progressing in some areas at her normal pace, we went in for a visit with an audiologist and an ENT doctor.  I was prepared for them to maybe say she needed tubes in her ears because she's had some ear infections in her life; what I was not expecting was for her to completely fail the hearing tests in both ears and for the doctors to tell us that she's experiencing significant hearing loss.  On top of her middle ear canals not functioning properly (which the tubes should correct) she had a foreign body logged in her right ear canal.  She must have stuck something in there in the past month or two and we never even noticed. The doctor tried to dislodged it with this God awful ice pick looking tool and I'm certain it was the most physical pain Eva has ever experienced. Jason and another nurse held her down while the doctor worked but it was useless, the object didn't come out and Eva's ear had blood pouring out of it.

We're going in this Wednesday to have tubes put in, to have the object removed and to take out her adenoids as well.  I am so incredibly nervous for her to be put under for over an hour but modern medicine is a blessing and I know everything will be fine. And the she can get back to the silly, fully hearing self that she used to be and we can look forward to Kindergarten in the Fall!

In the midst of all this turmoil I've almost forgotten to step back and simply be amazed at the fact that my baby is FIVE.  Wow... time sure does fly.

Getting ready for her hearing tests

In the soundproof box, talking to the audiologist

Being a goof and playing Dr. Eva Parks before the ENT doc showed up and ruined her day

Daddy explaining what was going to happen, since he had it done himself when he was little