...or 1:00 am...that's what time we left the house to go to the pediatric urgent care.
It all started at bedtime - Boston went to bed at 9:00, and after sleeping on and off for an hour or two it became very clear that he was NOT going to sleep anymore even though he was obviously very tired. "Goodness child, all you have is a minor cold and cough," - I thought. I had that mom "gut feeling" that something wasn't right when he continued to scream no matter what I did to comfort him. Okay, really I was just frustrated and logically I knew that he had never had a night like this EVER and so something must be wrong. My guess was that he had an ear infection. Hence, we left the house at 1:00 AM and drove to urgent care.
I don't remember the last time I drove around town after 1:00 AM (possibly in college?) but the roads are empty and I hit all the lights green. We made good time and arrived to find the waiting room at the pediatric ugent care completely EMPTY!! Yipee! We were called back as soon as I managed to fill out the paperwork (which was pretty slow because of the flower attached to the pen which was a great thing for Boston to grab as I was writing, and I was not very "quick" in my brian at that time of night).
Sure enough, ear infection! Boston had been aboslutely charming and happy since we left our house and was still game for more adventure at this point, so with prescriptions for antibiotics and numbing drops in hand, we left on a quest for a 24 hour pharmacy.
Luckily I was clever enough to find a 24 hour Walgreens near our house where we waited in the parking lot and Boston "drove" the car and watched the rain on the windshield for 20 minutes. Each time the windshield wiper would swipe across the window he would jump and then wait in great suspense for it to go again. It was so funny to watch him!
We made it back home a little after 2:30 AM and after giving Boston the full regime of drugs we were back in bed by 3:00 AM (and sound asleep veeerry quickly) - I thought being gone two hours wasn't too bad for all that we accomplished in the middle of the night. It was really quite an adventure, though I would prefer to avoid such adventures in the future. Even with all of Stephen's ear infections when he was younger we never had a "midnight ride" like this. He just slept through the pain I guess (poor baby!) and then we would take him to the doctor the next day where they never would believe that he could have an ear infection because he had been sleeping through the night still.
Boston was a new baby the next day and has been so happy ever since he started on the antibiotics. When he sees me coming toward him with that syringe of pink gooey stuff he smiles ear to ear and says, "Yum!" Or something like that. I am so grateful for modern medicine. What did moms when their sweet little babies had ear infections back before antibiotics were around? What do they do in 3rd world countries?? I prayed for those poor babies and mommys that night as I was drifting off to sleep.
