Tubes for Tuesday

James had his appointment with the ear doctor today, and unfortunately, he confirmed what we suspected -- that James has fluid in his ears. (Though, actually, that's better than the alternative, that something else was causing his hearing to worsen.) As we expected, he recommended that James have the ear tubes put in, and so James is scheduled to have that procedure this Tuesday.

It's a very quick procedure, about five minutes, but he still has to be under anesthesia for it. I'm sad that he has to go through yet another surgery, but on the other hand, I really want him to be able to hear as well as he can, so this is what we need to do. I'm glad they were able to squeeze us in before the holidays (at least, we're pretty sure they can -- right now we have the date but they're supposed to call us with a time. Usually they do them very first thing in the morning. Hopefully that will be true, so he doesn't have to fast any longer than necessary!)

Even with plugged up ears, he said a new word today: "door" (with a pretty decent "r" sound). And I had to go to work after his appointment (to a meeting about a proposed project to improve patient care outcomes, which was kind of a funny juxtaposition), but Mike took James upstairs and they got to visit with one of our favorite NICU nurses. Apparently James even showed off his walking skills for her!

In other news, we are attempting some sleep training again with Matthew and so far it has not been a complete disaster. He is not amused about being put in his crib after snuggles and his night-night song (even though he's usually mostly asleep by that point), but his crying is more like complaining rather than freaking out, so we'll see how it goes. Wish us luck.